
Book ■C'^^ 



COraBIGHT DEPOSm 



The Line is Busy 



By 

EDGAR HURST CHERINGTON 




THE ABINGDON PRESS 

NEW YORK CINCINNATI 






Copyright, 1922, by 
EDGAR HURST CHERINGTON 



Printed in the United States of America 



APR ^8 1922 
©CI.A659825 



TO STELLA, MY WIFE 



CONTENTS 

Foreword 7 

I. The Line is Busy 9 

II. Holy Recklessness 23 

III. Count Yourself In 33 

IV. Is It Easy to Be Good? 41 

V. "For Such A Worm AS I" 50 

VI. Stealing the Robes 60 

VII. The Test That Tells 69 

VIII. Smokeless Chimneys 77 

IX. Personality and the Kingdom 85 

X. Have a Happy Habit 98 

XI. The Courier of the King 109 

XII. The Worship of Work 123 

XIII. When the Mind Falls in Love 135 

XIV. "Take the Long Belt " 145 

XV. Self-Starters 159 

XVI. The New Universe and Its Champicw 171 



FOREWORD 

This little book was written as a recrea- 
tion. Much of it found expression out 
where the "trees unfold their banners," dur- 
ing the author's vacation days. It does not 
aspire to be a learned discussion of the 
truths it seeks to interpret, but, rather, to 
divest them of antique phraseology and ex- 
hibit them in terms of practical observation 
and experience. 

The author's sincere desire to interpret 
with clearness and comfort the great and 
abiding things of rehgion and hf e, may per- 
haps excuse the use of the colloquial form 
of expression and the frequent employment 
of "windows." 

Having in mind that the Divine Master 
only ''began to do and teach" the things of 
the Kingdom, I could not pretend to offer 
these chapters as completions, but only as 
very small beginnings. If they should shed 
a little bit of light upon the pathway of the 
reader's own thinking I will be content. 
Edgar H. Cherington. 

Toledo, Ohio. 

7 



I 

THE LINE IS BUSY 

The modern telephone is a growing won- 
der. More strikingly perhaps than any- 
other one thing does it accent the fact that 
our age is not the age of the canvas-backed 
schooner and pony express, but an age to 
which a "mile a minute" has become a mem- 
ory. Indeed, the great telephone system in 
a pecuUar sense seems the embodiment of 
a great century, in which we of To-day are 
having our life. A century of great forces 
and velocities, and consequently liable to 
become a century of great f olUes and frail- 
ties. It has become our teacher in the 
philosophy of personahty. The wonderful 
talking machine did not invent itself. Mil- 
lions use it who never heard the names of 
the inventors. Yet the great system which 
binds cities and States into one neighbor- 
hood was once personal. The wires 
swarmed overhead in our streets. The 
switchboard was all arranged in the thought 
of a thinker before it was built into an office. 



10 THE LINE IS BUSY 

And the perfect work of the busy enter- 
prise, which has its stations in all of our 
offices and homes, so depends on the private 
faithfulness of individual operators, that 
without them a great principle would be 
practically lost to society. It all helps us 
to see more clearly the fact that every 
strength, and every weakness as well, of 
humanity to-day was once personal. Cer- 
tainly, aU public weakness has been private 
weakness. All public strength has been 
personal strength. All public opinion has 
been personal opinion. It is in these per- 
sonal convictions and purposes that uni- 
versal sentiments and world-wide move- 
ments have their genesis. Sit down and 
trace back, if you will, any of the great re- 
sults or institutions of American history 
and away back there somewhere you will 
find that there was a man in it. Truth is 
not settled by majority vote. The teacher 
in science does not say to his students, "All 
in favor of having the magnetic needle turn 
north say *Aye,' those opposed say 'No.' " 
One thing is true of the magnetic needle 
and every other truth, it is not settled by^ 
claque of tongues ; otherwise the City Coun- 



THE LINE IS BUSY 11 

cil might order a comet to appear in our 
sky on Saturday afternoon. The truth ever 
awaits the personal thinker's torch to break 
through the fog and disclose it. 

Is there anything busier than a telephone 
line? It is busy with folks trying to find 
out things. It is busy because the Scrip- 
tiu'es so truthfully say, "We know in part," 
and we would Uke to find out what other 
folks know. Moreover, every person as a 
knower of truth knows only in part per- 
haps because he sees it partially, because 
he looks from a personal angle. We see 
only a small patch of the sky, but the uni- 
verse is boundless. One night when Jennie 
Lind was singing in the oratorio of the Mes- 
siah an old sea captain in the audience went 
to sleep and his snore became plainly audi- 
ble. Many auditors sitting near him were 
amazed, but it was not his fault that he had 
no ear for music. He doubtless knew how 
to load a boat so it would outride the storm, 
and in time of storm he knew how to relin- 
quish his right to a lifeboat and stand at his 
post in the face of death, but he was not the 
one to be put on the "music committee." 
One mind is poetic, another is analytic, an- 



12 THE LINE IS BUSY 

other is practical. One man approaches life 
through the intellect, another through the 
affections, another through the senses. 
When Tennyson writes a poem its merits 
cannot be determined by a microscope. The 
mind of every one has a personal bias, and 
this personal angle of outlook makes us par- 
tialists and makes it advisable that we "call 
up" somebody who has another outlook of 
truth, that we may learn of it more com- 
pletely. It is for this reason that a partner- 
ship with God seems necessary. 

The telephone has become our teacher in 
economics, and has shown us how one may 
multiply his power by using outside forces. 
Let us suppose that you have a half dozen 
errands to-morrow morning. You need to 
see someone at the north end of town, and 
another at the south end, some one at the 
mill, and the agent at the depot. By at- 
tempting to do all these errands, using only 
your own power, it would require all morn- 
ing and probably part of the afternoon. By 
making use of the telephone, which is a 
power separate from yourself, you can do 
the errands in twenty minutes and have the 
rest of the day for something else. You 



THE LINE IS BUSY 13 

have increased your capacity by using the 
power outside. "The line is busy" in the 
schooboom and the college, making use of 
teachers, discoverers, and achievements of 
the past in getting an education. Do we 
not talk with Galileo, Plato, Pericles, and 
John Hampden and the rest? Their 
thoughts have become the simple thinking 
of our early school days. Their strength 
has made us strong. Nothing profound 
was ever thought, nothing enchanting ever 
imagined, nothing noble ever uttered, noth- 
ing heroic ever done which is not our in- 
heritance. All the iconoclasm of the rough, 
rude years cannot blot out strength once 
created and men become mighty in propor- 
tion as they use it. 

This is true in spiritual life. Jesus does 
not only invite men to come imto him and 
learn of him, but to take his power and use 
it, take his grace and use it. The line is up, 
and to keep it busy in the work of salvation 
is our privilege. 

The telephone has become our teacher in 
sociology. It was something very impor- 
tant I had to say to a friend who was de- 
pending on me for information. It doubt- 



14 THE LINE IS BUSY 

less was to be a long conversation, so a 
friendly stool was found. But now when 
Central had been called, and the number 
given, the only thing to be heard was "The 
line is busy." Of course in such a case one 
might rave at the operator and argue the 
case and explain that the message we want 
to send is one of extreme urgency and that 
the other f eUow can wait. But we might as 
weU save our breath, the only answer that 
comes out of the receiver is, "The line is 
busy." In some large cities when you call a 
busy line, they just switch a phonograph 
into your circuit and the phonograph begins 
to say, "The line is busy; ring oflF; the line is 
busy ; ring off," and continues to say that ad 
infinitum until you do ring off, for one can 
make no headway arguing with a phono- 
graph that can only say one thing, and 
doesn't know what it is saying. Every day 
this strict and persistent teacher is empha- 
sizing the fact to our ears, wiUing or unwill- 
ing, that every man is bound to respect his 
relations to society. You are not the only 
man in town; if you were, it wouldn't be a 
town. "There are others." Moreover, you 
are considerably more than yourself. You 



THE LINE IS BUSY 15 

are that much in the start. But in addition 
to your being yourself you are a part of 
yoiu' neighbor and everybody else, a part of 
the town, a part of the church, a part of 
society, a part of the sum total. You are 
therefore under obligations to the sum total, 
as well as under obhgations to yourself. 
But here is a man who says, "My creed is to 
look out for number one." Yes, but the line 
is busy. Why don't you talk anyhow? Be- 
cause you cannot look out for number one 
to the exclusion of number two. It would 
be a splendid thing if there were a school 
somewhere accessible where people might 
matriculate for the purpose of learning how 
to look out for number one. Many a man 
thinks he is looking out for nimiber one, 
when he is doing the worst thing possible for 
number one. When Cain killed Abel he 
thought he was looking out for number one, 
that his brother dead was so much gain. 
But no, it was so much loss. All the sym- 
pathy of brotherhood and companionship 
that he needed and would have helped him 
in his battle with the strange new world, was 
destroyed by that one stroke of mistaken 
selfishness. Did you ever notice when one 



16 THE LINE IS BUSY 

man fails in business that someone else will 
likely fail soon afterwards? A few years 
ago, a certain prominent bank failed in one 
of our cities, and within a week a score of 
banks within a radius of a hundred miles 
closed their doors. Our success is depend- 
ent on other people. No man liveth to him- 
self. The philosopher cannot get along 
without his cook, the farmer brings him 
grain, the miner sends him coal, the doctor 
cures his distempers, the dentist pulls his 
teeth, and the lawyer pleads his cause. 
When you sit down to a very modest dinner, 
remember that it took millions of capital 
and millions of men to set it before you. 
The pepper came ten thousand miles. A 
great army of men, women, and children 
were engaged in the task of getting it into 
your pepperbox. Everything else in ac- 
cordance. With many cooperative and 
world-wide enterprises already working 
successfully, why is it not reasonable to ex- 
pect that aU the capital and all the folks in 
the world, under the leavening of Christian- 
ity, may yet work together for the greater 
good of all? "The line is busy" also in 
morals and religious character. We are in- 



THE LINE IS BUSY 17 

terdependent. It is to my interest that you 
should not be false, for then I lose your 
support in my eJBPort to be true. It is to my 
interest, if you please, that you should not 
become a moral wreck, for then another 
prop is taken away from my endeavor to be 
upright. It is not good for my health for 
you to be sick, and likewise it is not good 
for my moral character for yours to have 
a low tone. In a certain telephone ex- 
change, one day when the fire bells rang, a 
hundred phones called in and the query of 
all was, "Where is the fire?" Men down- 
town at business had heard the bells and 
had said to themselves : "What if the fire is 
in our square? What if it is next door to 
my residence?" "If my home is in danger, 
I must leave the ofiice and go out home to 
protect my property." But now suppose, 
instead of a brick house being on fire, a 
human life is on fire with hate, or drink, or 
greed, or iniquitous ambition, on fire with 
sin which is fast consuming the beautiful 
fabric, its character and prospects. If that 
fire is not put out, you may become poorer 
yourself. It is the nature of fire to spread, 
and if it does there is no telling how great 



18 THE LINE IS BUSY 

your loss may be when the Ufe of your 
friend or neighbor is reduced to the residuum 
of a burned out goodness. Oh, sir, in the 
face of the human waste and drift in all of 
our cities, and with a knowledge of youthful 
crime that, it cannot be denied, appears to 
be fast increasing, the people everywhere 
must awake to the feehng that human lives 
are on fire. It is an alarm for your ward; 
it is an alarm which many towers might 
peal forth. This only suggests a great field 
that calls for social salvation, where Christ 
calls you to labor in partnership with him. 
From him we can learn what to do when the 
line is busy. He teaches folks how to hve and 
get along with one another, and what spirit 
should actuate them. He said, "Bear ye one 
another's burdens." He taught his disciples 
that there is a telephonic system which con- 
nects every man with every other man, and 
wherever that hne is struck, it sends a 
message or a shock to every brother that 
breathes under the broad dome of our 
hvmaan sky. "Who is weak and I am not 
weakf said Paul. True enough, he meant 
also to say, "Who is strong and I am not 
strong?" The nearest king and the re- 



THE LINE IS BUSY 19 

motest slave are related. When Jesus was 
born in Bethlehem a new star arose on the 
world. It was a morning star. The word 
''brother" was dropped from heaven with 
new music in its accents. "Religion heard it 
and crawled out of her cloister. Literature 
heard it and began to glorify common life." 
Government heard it and came down from 
her throne and began to break the shackles 
of the slave. For the high privilege of 
being a man in the light of this new day, the 
great God will surely hold you responsible, 
as he calls you to become his helpful partner 
in promoting social salvation and in bring- 
ing down to this earth the civilization of the 
skies. 

When I was a boy the telephone was just 
being introduced. The company was very 
attentive to its patrons, who were fewer in 
nimiber than now. One morning a man 
came around to our house and inquired, 
"What's the matter with your telephone?" 
He was the trouble hunter. He said: "They 
cannot *get you' at headquarters. Several 
times in the last few days they have called 
your number and received no answer." He 
opened the little box and did some adjusting 



20 THE LINE IS BUSY 

and went away. The next morning while 
at breakfast the telephone rang. I said to 
myself, "I wonder who that is calling so 
early in the morning; it must be something 
urgent." So leaving my buttered cake to 
get cold, I hastened to the instrument and 
said, "Hello," and back came the bland re- 
sponse, "Just testing the line." 

"Oh! is that all? If I had known that, I 
would have stayed with my breakfast." 

But in spite of the annoyance I keep 
thinking about it: "Just testing the line," 
"testing the line." Oh, I didn't understand 
at first. That meant, "Is the line open? 
Can we get a message through? Are you in 
communication, in touch with headquarters? 
Is everything all right to begin the day?" 
As men and women, boys and girls engaged 
in the great day of life, you have a great 
deal of work before you of duty to God and 
service to humanity. Do not be impatient 
if I summon you to the test and ask: Is 
the hne open between yourself and the great 
Master? Can he get a message thi^ough? 
Is everything all right to begin or continue 
in the magnificent business of being a rep- 
resentative of the living God? Nobody 



THE LINE IS BUSY 21 

can achieve a success worth having imless 
he gets permission from on high to succeed. 
You cannot point me to a single life that 
has been lived with indifference to God's 
will and God's church and God's day and 
God's book and God's people and call that 
life a success. It must be surrounded with 
excuses and apologies. The verdict of his- 
tory has ever been that applause soon dies 
away from any name and any life that has 
not been lived in touch with God. 

What an unspeakable privilege it would 
have been for one to have been private secre- 
tary to Homer, or assistant to Michael 
Angelo! How willingly would admirers 
compete for such a fellowship! Such a 
privilege cannot now be obtained. But it is 
grandly possible for you to live and work in 
intimate touch with Jesus Christ, and the 
strength of such a companionship will im- 
part a glorious contentment. In the school 
of this great Master there were eleven 
students whom he especially trained and 
taught during a three-years' coiu'se. They 
were not men of genius by any means. 
They were dull and slow of perception and 
unpromising to the last degree; but under 



22 THE LINE IS BUSY 

his tutoring, they became mighty exemplars 
of the greatest system of soul culture 
known to the world. Without him, they 
would have had no luster or fame. With- 
out him, they could not have written their 
subhme chapters, preached their wondrous 
sermons, or lived their heroic hves. I bid 
you remember that what was the making of 
them must be the making of you. You too 
may live in touch with him. You too may 
sit at his feet, think his thoughts, feel the 
breath of his love and catch the impulse of 
his errand. Thus becoming wise in the cul- 
ture of Himianity's great teacher, you will 
become partakers of the divine nature and 
the "beauty of the Lord our God" shall be 
upon you. 



II 

HOLY RECKLESSNESS 

At a summer resort in northern Michi- 
gan I watched with interest the loading of 
a bmich of cattle which the owner was ship- 
ping to the Pittsburgh market. 

"Have you sold those cattle?" I asked. 

"No," was the curt reply. 

"Do you know who is going to buy 
them?" 

"No." 

"Haven't you any idea who is going to 
buy them?" 

"Not the least idea," he insisted. 

To a man of no business experience it 
seemed like a reckless venture, to send a 
whole train load of cattle to a distant city, 
expecting to make a satisfactory sale after 
arrival. But it was the recklessness of faith. 
The shipper had such confidence in the mar- 
ket and such a satisfactory knowledge of 
the demand that he was reckless enough — 
yea, wise enough — to load up every hoof 
that he had on the farm and send it off, not 
23 



24 THE LINE IS BUSY 

knowing for certain just how things would 
be when he reached his destination. He 
could not know how many cattle would 
perish on the road, yet he felt assured that 
the situation justified any amount of ven- 
ture. We turned back to the hotel a bit 
reflective. Passing the pubhc square, we 
noticed a farmer with a long wagon whip in 
his hand walking his beat around two wagon 
loads of potatoes. We particularly noticed 
because the spring drought was charged 
with being responsible for a very short crop 
of the early variety of potatoes, and prices 
at the resorts for the same were decidedly 
fancy. This old farmer had driven his 
teams across two counties to reach the 
resorts. "Have you sold your potatoes?" 
we asked. 

"N-o-o-o," he replied with a satisfied 
drawl. 

"Do you know who will buy them?" 

"Well, not 'zactly, but I reckon somebody 
will." 

Here was another reckless man, reckless 
enough to load up every potato he could 
dig, and take over to the resort region, not 
knowing exactly how he would come out 



HOLY RECKLESSNESS 25 

but feeling assured that to do less than he 
was doing would be stupidity. Now, here 
were some wayside illustrations of believing 
recklessness. There is a certain venture- 
someness in business, love, and religion that 
is necessary for a large result. Prudence is 
estimated as a virtue; but suppose you sit 
down and make a record of the things which 
prudence has done for the world. If Cau- 
tion had had her way, she would have kept 
Columbus back from the venture to find a 
continent on the other side to balance. She 
would have put out the fires of science. If 
Caution had had her way, Moses would have 
stayed with his comforts and cushions in the 
Egyptian palace. Nothing is so imprudent 
as too much prudence. 

Likewise, economy is supposed to be a 
valuable principle for life. But it would be 
doubtful economy to increase a bank ac- 
count by saving the price of meat, in the 
strength of which the money is to be earned. 
It would be doubtful economy to save the 
price of a load of coal in order that when 
the rigors of winter came on, one might 
have something with which to buy cough 
medicine. In the matter of Christian 



26 THE LINE IS BUSY 

duties and activities it is the calculating 
spirit that withers us. If one stops to cal- 
culate beforehand just what will be the re- 
sult in the case of service contemplated, 
there will be no result. 

If one wants to be told just what profit 
he will have by attending church service, he 
will soon be calculating how seldom he can 
attend and keep out of perdition. If one is 
chiefly concerned to know how long it will 
be before God pays him back, and how 
much dividend he will receive for right 
doing, he will soon be calculating how little 
bread he can cast on the waters so as to have 
enough for a breakfast on the dawning of 
the eternal morning. One of the real perils 
of a church is this matter of getting into 
ruts. It comes to pass when folks are "at 
ease in Zion." A rut is not the result of 
heavy hauling; it is the result of a soft spot 
in the road. Many preachers and laymen are 
hunting soft spots. We get lazy, then the 
church becomes rutty. Many seem to be 
ever considering the question. How can I be 
rehgious without any inconvenience, or 
without going out of my way? How little 
attention can I give to God's kingdom and 



HOLY RECKLESSNESS 27 

yet be counted in? In contrast with that 
spirit the inspired Book declares "He that 
observeth the wind shall not sow; and he 
that regardeth the cloud shall not reap. In 
the morning sow thy seed, and in the eve- 
ning withhold not thine hand: for thou 
knowest not which shall prosper, whether 
this or that, or whether they both shall be 
ahke good." If I go to prayer meeting, 
what good will it do me? If I give a dollar 
to missions, will it be sure to convert a 
heathen? Will a kind act to yonder man in 
trouble be sure to reform his life? Oh! sow 
it all, sow it all! Sow beside all waters. You 
must make the venture of faith, then the 
harvest of goodness will not fail. Blessed 
are those folks who never shut up shop, but 
keep on doing good whether it is succeeding 
or not succeeding, and keep on doing right 
and doing duty even though it does not seem 
to be paying just now. 

The Old Testament representative and 
illustrator of this spiritual instinct was 
called "The Friend of God." At the divine 
call to leave home and kindred and friends, 
and take his departure for a land, "which I 
shall show thee," he "went out not knowing 



28 THE LINE IS BUSY 

whither he went," was not that very indis- 
creet? Do not discreet men nowadays in- 
sist they want to know how they are coming 
out before they start? We have all had 
sympathy for Abraham because he had to 
venture on such uncertainties. We have 
thought it was too bad that he should have 
to take that leap in the dark. But while he 
did not know "whither he went" he did 
know "a thing or two." He knew at whose 
call he was proceeding; he knew who was to 
be his guide; he knew what were to be the 
final results of his faithful and obedient 
going. From a human standpoint it was 
unreasonable, but it was true. It was mad- 
ness, but it was wisdom and inspiration. 
The greatest facts are discovered and the 
greatest experiences are had on a plane 
where reason alone cannot walk without be- 
coming dizzy. It is very entertaining to be 
told that the earth revolves continuously, 
and that nobody falls off. You may tell 
that to the inmates of the asylum, but do 
not expect reasoning people to accept it. It 
is the most unreasonable thing in the world, 
but it is true. No bird can fly very far or 
very satisfactorily with one wing. Neither 



HOLY RECKLESSNESS 29 

can the soul; it must have two wings — 
philosophy and faith. With these two 
pinions the spirit of man can ventiu'e into 
any sky and cleave the unknown. These 
trusty wings will yet bring God's pilgrims 
up to his beatific presence. 

The New Testament representative of 
this instinct of the human spirit is Peter 
when he enters upon that impossible task of 
walking to Jesus on the water. He started 
because, and only because, Jesus bade him 
come. Having been bidden by the mighty 
Christ to do this, he started at it as though 
there were nothing in the way and as though 
there were nothing absurd about it, and as 
though to know the Master's bidding was all 
the qualification needed for any sort of ven- 
ture or any sort of doing. 

Some of us who hesitate in doing the plain 
bidding of Christ because of the difficulties 
in the way are fond of comforting ourselves 
and justifying our conservatism by exhibit- 
ing Peter's folly and recklessness. But I 
heartily wish that every one of us might be 
always as the venturesome Peter was at 
that moment when John McNeill, the 
Scotch preacher, pictures him climbing 



30 THE LINE IS BUSY 

down out of his boat with the storm light 
on his face and the spray in his hair, afPord- 
ing thus a ghmpse of what you and he and 
I by the grace of God were meant to be, 
namely: personahties so filled with the vision 
of Christ, that all things temporal could not 
make us hesitate in doing the plain bidding 
of Jesus. 

All the great reforms are accomplished 
by holy recklessness. Christ bids his dis- 
ciples to venture righteous undertakings. 
They will not understand always, just how 
it is going to be accomphshed, nevertheless 
it is certainly safe to venture to do whatever 
is the plain bidding of Jesus. 

"Why did we not vote the saloons out of 
town before this?" remarked a "dry" 
worker after a victorious campaign. Plain 
enough: no one dared to venture to lead in 
the movement. It was unheard of, and such 
a reform was regarded as impossible as 
Peter walking on the water. Whoever at- 
tempted such boldness would need to get his 
life insured. It is only a lack of sanctified 
courage that prevents, or delays us in 
similar matters in responding to the bidding 
of righteousness. 



HOLY RECKLESSNESS 31 

We are afraid it will hurt our business or 
hurt our something if we are enterprising 
against evil, and so we stay inside the good 
boat "discretion," for fear we might get a 
wetting. There is no "walking by faith" in 
this. It is walking by human calculation, 
walking by the weather reports, walking by 
the "cork soles" of human sagacity instead 
of walking by faith. But the objector will 
remind me that this New Testament adven- 
turer made a failure : instead of walking on 
the water he sank in the water. Yes, but 
why did he sink? He started well, but he 
began to sink because he got his eyes on the 
wind and away from the eternal Christ. 
And the Master said, "Wherefore did'st 
thou doubt?" not, "Wherefore did you be- 
gin?" nor "Wherefore did you venture?" 
Christ did not consider it ever a reckless 
thing to do his bidding, but "Wherefore 
did'st thou doubt?" No answer was given. 
Doubt never gives any answer to Jesus. 
In the world it gets a reputation for intel- 
lectual acumen, but Jesus always speaks of 
it as a "stupidity." 

Above all things let us not hesitate to do 
the plain bidding of Christ, by getting our 



32 THE LINE IS BUSY 

eye on the difficulties in the way. For in- 
stance, Christ bids all men come to him, but 
the nature of things is against it. The heart 
is sinful, fleshly desires and tendencies are 
away from a spiritual ideal; and if a sinner 
were governed by the nature of things, he 
would stay away from Christ. He will 
need to recognize that the mighty Christ 
who bids him, is superior to the natin-e of 
things. His conmiands are all in the pres- 
ent tense, which means that he never ex- 
pects a man to take time to first compre- 
hend the mysteries of redemption or become 
qualified to obey his call. It is not the ex- 
perience of the most of seekers after God 
that they see their way clear through to him 
from the start. The first that they see will 
be the difficulties in the road, but these are 
to be walked over. They are difficulties so- 
cial, doctrinal, moral, industrial. They 
will never become any easier to navigate by 
thinking about them, but with the soul 
"looking unto Jesus" who is superior to the 
"nature of things," they are forgotten. O 
for such a vision of the Eternal Christ as 
will make us superior to the calculating 
spirit ! 



Ill 

COUNT YOURSELF IN 

It will not be denied that Christianity has 
a marvelous past, but what about its pres- 
ent? We are accustomed to think that cer- 
tain things were once possible to men, and 
that certain experiences and certain effects 
were once common to the gospel; but that 
was in the great past. We live in a new age 
and a remote time and cannot expect such 
things now. People will tell us of a time 
when there was a revival of rehgion in their 
community, when the interest was so great 
that it was the main topic of conversation. 
Business men closed their places of business 
and came for miles to get their share, but 
that was in the great past. We will all 
agree that if Peter were the evangelist, the 
gospel would produce startling results; but 
that preacher has long since gone home, and 
we are left to push the battle without him. 

We can easily get men to agree to gen- 
eral statements when they will not agree to 
particular statements. They will stand up 
33 



34 THE LINE IS BUSY 

with a hymn book in church and sing "All 
hail the power of Jesus' name," and "Crown 
him Lord of all,"' and sing heartily, but to 
have him as Lord of their "all" is farthest 
from their thoughts. They count them- 
selves "out." They beheve that God does 
hear prayer, but count themselves out. 
They believe the promises of God are yea 
and amen to him that believeth, but count 
themselves out. What can we do or say, to 
get the folks who are always excepting 
themselves from general truths to count 
themselves in. It is stated of many a man 
in Bible story that he prayed and his prayer 
was answered. If such a blundering, 
tempted soul as Elijah or Peter could get 
God's ear and affect the transactions of the 
universe, you can move the hand that moves 
the world. 

If they lived so far away from church 
and yet were not kept away from prayer 
meeting, count yourself in. If they had 
such a hard crowd to deal with and yet led 
hundreds to the true worship and life, count 
yourself in. You can do it. 

They were but men, then I am sorry for 
them but am glad for myself, for they re- 



COUNT YOURSELF IN 35 

mind me of the manhood that is within the 
reach of all — of the men who are famous 
for strength, such as Luther and the Bap- 
tist. You can scarcely imagine they were 
ever weak-kneed and uncertain. What 
they didj gave them a reputation for stal- 
wart righteousness. What made them il- 
lustrious was not that they were men like 
ourselves but the fact that while they were 
lame they climbed so high up the mountain ; 
while they had such temptableness and 
weakness as we have, they did accomplish 
certain things which belong to the doings of 
the strong. All men, great and small, have 
had to go to the school of "Endeavor and 
Mistake." 

People read that "Elijah prayed," "And 
Paul prayed," and they say "Certainly, cer- 
tainly." You would expect that of a prophet 
and of an apostle. They were preachers. 
They were members of the church. They 
were under obligation to be religious. 

Here is the genesis of a great blunder. 
It should be made plain that the require- 
ments of religion are not for church mem- 
bers alone, not for such as have "come for- 
ward" and pubhcly avowed their purpose 



36 THE LINE IS BUSY 

to live better. The obligation to be a Chris- 
tian is independent of any agreement you 
ever made or any organization you ever 
joined. Men of the world are excusing 
their worldhness and secularity and sin by 
urging that they never made any profes- 
sion. There is a lot of that. It would be as 
reasonable for a thief to exonerate his 
deeds by saying that he "never made any 
claims to honesty." As well might a high- 
wayman justify his murderous assault on 
one of our citizens by saying that he "never 
pretended to be a peaceable man." What- 
ever a man's pretensions are, they do not 
relieve him of obligations which exist inde- 
pendent of all pretensions or professions. 
The obHgation to love God is not created 
by promising to love him or by joining an 
organization which has that in its constitu- 
tion and by-laws. God's commands are not 
for communicants but for all men. If it is 
wrong to be drimk in church, it is just as 
wrong to be drunk in the saloon. If it is 
wrong to be proud and selfish in the church, 
it is just as wrong to be proud and selfish 
in the world. Oh! it would be shocking to 
hear a deacon swear, but is not swearing 



COUNT YOURSELF IN 37 

just as wrong for the man who sits behind 
the deacon and who belongs to no church 
communion? The universe would go to 
smash if it were otherwise. The Ten Com- 
mandments were given not to church mem- 
bers, but to men. The Bible is the revealed 
will of God for men, not simply for the 
folks that go to Sunday school. You are 
bound to do right because you are a man, 
and I am bound to do right because I am a 
man and because God requires men to do 
right. 

To say "it is expected" that those who 
have made a profession of Christian faith 
will obey God's law is quite another matter. 
What society expects and what the world 
expects on one side, and what God requires 
on the other side, are altogether separate. 
In the last analysis, the obligation to be a 
Christian was not created when you became 
one, but existed before, and was only recog- 
nized and accepted then. The one who 
really desires to be holy will seek all the 
helps he can get. He will surround himself 
with church injfluences or any other influ- 
ences or companionships that will aid in 
that direction. He will seek the aid of 



38 THE LINE IS BUSY 

sacraments, vows, and resolutions; but 
these aU are only helps to assist him in 
meeting his obligation and do not create it. 
So I am saying it over and over again to 
the man on the outside: God's commands 
are to the individual ; it is as much your duty 
to live a hfe of faith and spiritual-minded- 
ness as it is mine. It is time you were recog- 
nizing this duty and proving your response 
by seeking the help of the church, which is 
only God's institution for helping men hve 
as they ought to hve and be what they ought 
to be. 

We are "met up" every day with the fact 
that there is a great difference among men 
who are otherwise similar. What makes the 
difference? In one word, earnestness. If 
I am lacking this, I know nothing which 
will generate it in me Hke the example of 
Jesus. He never would have moved men as 
he did if anything less than a flaming zeal 
had moved him. The marvel of history is 
the influence which that blessed life has had 
upon these last two thousand years. It has 
been wafted down the ages as human na- 
ture's refreshment. Coming up the Saint 
Lawrence River one hears with delight a 



COUNT YOURSELF IN 39 

chime of bells as he approaches Montreal. 
Naturally enough, he seeks to visit the 
cathedral which could send out such melody 
from its towers. He inquires for the "chime 
room," expecting to go up, but is told that 
it is down. There, in an obscure place on the 
ground floor, sits a slight girl at something 
that looks like the keyboard of a melodeon. 
She plays thereon, but you hear no sounds, 
but the pressing of the keys lets loose elec- 
trical currents which connect with the 
towers and set in motion silvery bells. As 
the operator plays in her quiet place, the 
world outside, toilers in the shops, laborers 
in the street, folks everywhere, hear the 
sweet hymn and are glad. Oh! we cannot 
imagine what a dull world this would be 
were it not for the life of Jesus which comes 
to us like sweet music from far distant 
towers. Generation after generation has 
been refreshed by it. And it means more, 
because the chime room is down on a level 
with our human nature. 

He has shown us as no one else has done 
what kind of inspiration must operate in the 
chime room of our life in order to send out 
tones of good cheer and helpfulness. If we 



40 THE LINE IS BUSY 

would move men as he moved men, nothing 
less than his earnestness must move us. 

Like him, we will beheve in the reality of 
goodness; hke him, we must be conscious 
that the powers on the side of goodness are 
greater than all that can be arrayed against 
it ; hke him we must in our inmost soul have 
the unanimous confidence that we are the 
allies of these victorious powers. Then will 
Christianity be the master passion. Then 
will angels and men be given an oppor- 
tunity to behold how lordly is the power of 
an earnest hfe. 



IV 

IS IT EASY TO BE GOOD? 

Yes and No. It is and it isn't, according 
to who is answering the question. One con- , 
ception of the Christian life regards it as a 
struggle because there is so much opposi- 
tion to encounter. Indeed, Paul's own 
judgment in the matter was that it was a 
fight, and a constant battle, which would 
need to be kept up until the end, hence he 
exhorts his brethren to "endure hardness as 
good soldiers of Jesus Christ." But Jesus 
himself said, "My yoke is easy and my bur- 
den it is light." The two estimates seem 
rather contradictory. 

And then the world evidently thinks it 
much easier to live a worldly and sinful life 
than to conform to the requirements of the 
Christian standards. It is easier in the sense 
that things are going that way. The great 
current is the world current, and it is surely 
easier to go with the current than it is to go 
against it. Easier to float than it is to row, 
easier to be like everybody else, easier to do 
41 



42 THE LINE IS BUSY 

things when "they all do it" than to be dis- 
tinctly and peculiarly something different. 
The popular notion perhaps is that it is 
easier to be a sinner, and yet the Bible says 
plainly, "The way of the transgressor is 
hard," and we know it is. It is hard on the 
body, draining it of its power and abusing 
it by dissipation. It is hard on the intellect, 
for it tends to weaken every faculty. It is 
hard on the moral and spiritual nature, for 
it cHps the wings of every noble aspiration; 
and yet so many of us think it is easier to be 
a sinner than to be a Christian. The hard- 
ness of a Christian hfe has reference always 
to the opposition which goodness encoun- 
ters in the world, but it is a hardness that 
pays, a hardness which is exhilarating be- 
cause applauded by the angels and cush- 
ioned by a divine peace. The hardness of 
the sinful life, in contrast, does not come 
from the world's opposition but from the 
suffering arising from violated law and re- 
bellion against God — the hardness of 
slavery and death at last which is the ter- 
rible wages of such wretched service. I 
know one thing only of which a man never 
tires. A shopkeeper gets tired of his shop, 



IS IT EASY TO BE GOOD? 43 

a lawyer gets tired of his profession, the 
drummer becomes tired of the "road" and 
wants to retire, the doctor becomes tired of 
his practice and gets a yomiger partner in 
the office, the farmer grows tired of the 
labor on the farm and moves to town, but 
a Christian never tires of serving his great 
Master, unless he has slipped the yoke of 
his Master's spirit, for to live in that yoke 
is to live in the realm of restfulness. 

Now, I think that sin is tiresome and 
fatiguing because it is unnatural. It does 
not fit a man as God originally made him. 
Either goodness or badness is our deepest 
nature and the very fact that the sinful con- 
dition is described in the Bible as a "fall" 
indicates a departure from the normal to the 
abnormal. As the man whom God created 
was a good man, it is evident that the sinful 
man is a deformity. If this is heresy, I am 
sorry for the truth, but I never did believe 
that the deepest thing in man is sin. Deeper 
down than sin is God, 

Is it not always easier to be natural than 
unnatural? I suspect, then, that the rest- 
fulness of a truly Christian soul is because 
it has renounced rebellion and has come 



44 THE LINE IS BUSY 

back into a sweet conformity with the laws 
of our being. 

We are not unmindful either of the ap- 
parent exceptions of those to whom a re- 
ligious life is an irksome bondage, an un- 
pleasant and uncongenial experience. They 
"yawn through the sermon as though they 
were doing penance" ; they seem to have no 
satisfaction in Christ's service; they are 
nominally bearing religious burdens while 
wearing the devil's yoke. Christ said, "Come 
unto me, and I will give you rest," but 
they came to something else. They came to 
a meetinghouse; they came to a cushioned 
pew ; they came to a painted window and an 
elaborate ceremonial — all of which, how- 
ever, is not an adequate substitute for com- 
ing to Christ. Jesus calls in unmistakable 
accents, "Come to me," and in answering 
men say, "I will come to the communion; I 
will come to Church; I will sign a pledge; 
I will turn over a new leaf." But do you 
not see that all these things, very good 
things indeed, may nevertheless become a 
"refuge of lies," when done as a substitute 
for coming to Christ? 

They will not afford the rest that men are 



IS IT EASY TO BE GOOD? 45 

seeking. The promise never was made that 
if you turn over a new leaf you shall find 
rest. The fact is that all effort at self- 
reformation will be found a heavy yoke, 
but, "Come unto me" says Jesus, "and you 
shall find rest, for my yoke is easy and my 
burden it is light." 

The wings of an eagle are large and are 
quite an additional weight to the body. 
Considering the long, long journeys which 
the eagle takes, and hence the desirableness 
of being free from any unnecessary load, 
these wings would seem a burden which 
could be dispensed with if we did not know 
that it is a burden which is light. I remem- 
ber the first time I went to our County 
Fair, where once a year everybody went, 
and then everybody else. The one thing 
that impressed me was that the large major- 
ity of the people carried a bundle under the 
arm. I wondered why, and remarked that 
if these people were going* to do much walk- 
ing, as they would have to do to see much of 
the fair, it would certainly be better to get 
rid of bundles of all kind. Was this bimdle 
an impediment? That depends on what was 
in the bundle. The fact is that the particu- 



46 THE LINE IS BUSY 

lar bundle referred to was a lunch box con- 
taining bread and meat and a bottle of milk, 
and it was being carried to enable the car- 
rier to walk more and do more and see more 
of the exposition. 'When the lunch was 
transferred from the box to the inner man 
it weighed just as much as it did before. It 
did not lose an ounce by that transfer 
(except the pasteboard, wrapping paper 
and string, which we do not count) , and yet 
it was a burden which Hf ted instead of being 
lifted. The Master, then, was not pro- 
pounding riddles when he said, "My burden 
is light" and when he offered to lighten the 
load of the heavy laden by adding a yoke. 
He was only saying in an imderstand- 
able way that the impulse with which a task 
is met determines whether it is going to be 
easy or hard, whether it is going to be a 
weight that bows down or a weight that 
lifts. One day when crossing the street in 
Columbus, Ohio, with a very good old lady, 
she took my arm with the remark and 
apology, 

"I am afraid you will find me an impedi- 
ment." 

But, conscious of the strength awakened 



IS IT EASY TO BE GOOD? 47 

by the touch of her arm, I felt it was one 
of those weights which inspire lifting power 
and I said, 

"How can that be since when I was little 
I used to hold on to your hand to keep from 
falling, and frequently you have carried me 
altogether in your arms when I was very 
tired." 

If I was no impediment to her then, 
surely she was none to me now, on the prin- 
ciple that there are some weights which 
arouse all our loyalty and strength and love 
as soon as they are laid upon us. The ques- 
tion is not how much we may bear, but. 
What is the motive power which will make 
the bearing of it an exhilaration? 

It is easy, therefore, to do Christian 
work if we love enough. But in considering 
the question of whether we are wings to 
anybody or any church or any of God's en- 
terprises in the world, we almost have for- 
gotten that all Christian tasks would be 
hard without the Omnipotent helper. 

We watched with wonderful interest an 
ocean vessel in San Francisco Bay loading 
up its freight for Liverpool. It had come 
from England, bringing coal, and now was 



48 THE LINE IS BUSY 

loading the hold of the ship with wheat — 
thousands of tons — while the upper decks 
were occupied with passengers. All these 
tons of burden the ship was to take around 
the Horn to England's shore. She is well 
named when they call her the "burden- 
bearer of the sea." But the ship is enabled 
to carry so much because she is herself being 
carried. The mighty Pacific tides swell 
under the keel of the mighty vessel and lift 
her as easily as they would lift a skiff. The 
ship carries the cargo because the ocean car- 
ries the ship. You and I will do more hft- 
ing of the world's burdens, do it more easily 
and masterfully, as we ourselves are buoyed 
up by the power of God which will be under 
us like the perpetual lift of the sea. The 
Book says, "Bear ye one another's bur- 
dens," but, it also says, "Cast thy burden 
on the Lord and he will sustain thee." The 
latter will make the former easier. 

He is faithful who has promised. On 
your United States Liberty Bond you read 
with satisfaction that the United States 
promises to pay you the face of that bond 
in gold. You possess the bond and are not 
lying awake nights wondering whether the 



IS IT EASY TO BE GOOD? 49 

United States will keep its word and redeem 
the bond at the appointed time. You have 
never even thought of the possibility of any 
failure of the nation's pledge to you. You 
are content. 

Shall we be satisfied with the promise 
of our government and have no confidence 
in the promises of the Almighty? 



"FOR SUCH A WORM AS I" 

Isaac Watts was a great hymn writer. 
He has written the greatest hymns in the 
language, exalting the character of God 
and of his Christ. This may, in a measure, 
account for the fact that his humility has 
worked "overtime" and consequently his 
self-abasement abnormally developed. I 
could never be entirely reconciled to his 
atonement hymn or that part of it which 
asks, "Would he devote that sacred head for 
such a worm as I?" The expression crip- 
ples the thought, because he did devote his 
sacred head for "such as I," and yet he 
would not devote his sacred head for a 
"worm." 

If we know anything at all about com- 
parative values, we do know that the Lord 
Jesus did not leave the glory which he had 
with the Father to come down to the earth 
to bleed, and suffer, and die for a lot of 
worms. It would not have been worth 
50 



"FOR SUCH A WORM AS I" 51 

while. He would not have paid his ex- 
penses at the very best. 

Of one thing I have always felt very sure 
since the days of its occurrence, namely, 
that Jesus called me to preach his gospel; 
but I never could get up any interest or in- 
spiration in preaching that gospel to a con- 
gregation of "worms." 

I never could feel justified in trudging 
around all over town and out of town to 
make pastoral calls on "worms." 

I never could feel that it would matter 
much. And when some of them are taken 
ill and have to go to the hospital, why should 
I go to the hospital to pray for the sick 
**worms"? Much less could there be worthy 
impulse for practicing self-denial, so as to 
be able to send the missionary to heathen 
worms with the "good news" that they are 
living in splendid ignorance of what they 
are. How different is the inspiration that a 
man belongs to the lineage of God, that he 
is a "partaker of the divine nature," and is 
an heir of immortahty ! How every faculty 
opens under the breath of such a faith, like 
the petals of a hyacinth under the touch of 
morning! 



52 THE LINE IS BUSY 

There is some dignity in being a man. 
When we are told that the "world was 
made for man and not man for the world," 
that the sun was kindled for his comfort and 
delight, the stars hung in the firmament to 
drive away the shadows from his nightly 
path, and that the constellations were "lit 
up" that he might see in their light the mag- 
nificence of his own selfhood, what good 
reason has he for feehng like a worm? The 
Bible says that the Creator made man a 
little lower than God. "A shaving less 
than God" reads Gesenius, one of the 
greatest Hebrew scholars. It says, "Thou 
crownedst him with glory and honor; thou 
madest him to have dominion over the works 
of thy hand; thou hast put all things under 
his feet." When you thus read the creden- 
tials of your being, what right have you to 
feel like a worm, or to reckon yourself 
eclipsed by anything but God and his 
angels? 

It is significant that so much of the Bible 
is written to make a man respect humanity 
of which he is a member. 

If you put a mean estimate upon your- 
self, that will culminate in being mean. It 



"FOR SUCH A WORM AS I" 53 

will also result in a cheap estimate of your 
fellow man. On the other hand, where 
there is the keenest self-respect there will 
be the greatest respect of other people. 

Of all God's creation, man stands alone in 
his capacity for progress. In contrast with 
that fact Thain Davidson says, "The sun 
shines no brighter to-day than it did on 
Adam. The birds are not any more skillful 
in their song than when they filled the 
bowers of Eden with their music. The bees 
make no better honey now than when David 
found the sweet comb in the carcass of the 
lion, nor do the flowers yield richer fra- 
grance than when they perfumed the palace 
chambers of King Solomon at Jerusalem." 
If a sheep should live to be a hundred years 
old, it would make no progress or improve- 
ment of its sheephood, but the better types 
of men are continually improving, enlarg- 
ing their knowledge by strengthening men- 
tal powers, and improving the world by cul- 
tivation and invention, and making it every 
year a grander thing to live. 

But it will be urged that man is a sinner. 
But if that is urged to disprove his great- 
ness, it is a sample of blundering logic that 



54 THE LINE IS BUSY 

proves the opposite. A genius for being 
bad is a sign of greatness. The creature 
that can disobey God must be far above the 
creature that cannot disobey. 

A worm cannot sin, poor thing! A worm 
cannot backslide, poor worm! A worm can- 
not defy the Ahnighty and break his com- 
mandments, poor creature! Such a prerog- 
ative belongs only to a man. Perhaps you 
never were congratulated on being a sin- 
ner, but there is in it the embryo of great- 
ness. The Master said, "How much then, 
is a man better than a sheep," how much 
better is indicated by the fact that a man 
can sin but a sheep cannot. 

Inasmuch as "all have sinned and come 
short of the glory of God," it fills me with 
wonder to hear Christ passing his opinion 
and saying that an innocent sheep is not to 
be compared in worth with a wicked man. 
Evidently, the depth to which anything 
can fall is only an index to the height or 
loftiness from which it has come. In other 
words, to be sinful implies the possibility of 
being saintly. It is just because a man is a 
son of God that he can sin; it is just be- 
cause he has a conscience; it is just because 



"FOR SUCH A WORM AS I" 55 

he has a spiritual nature; it is just because 
he has a will of his own. But it is always in 
forgetfulness of his divine sonship that a 
man turns his back on his Father and wan- 
ders in sin. When, like the prodigal, he 
"comes to himself," he comes back to his 
divine Lord. When a sinner comes to him- 
self he rediscovers the fact that he is a man, 
that he has an intrinsic value, something 
that relates him to God quite beyond any- 
thing that belongs to the brute creation. 

It was always a beautiful reflection to me 
that Christ thought we were worth "dying 
for." Not worthy of it, mind you ; but after 
he had figured us up to see how much we 
"come to," he concluded there was some- 
thing in us that was worth such a great ex- 
penditure and sacrifice as he bestowed on us. 
In one of Charles Dickens' books he de- 
scribes a wicked woman who was indeed far 
gone in sin. But conceiving her nature as 
a great structure, he said that one might 
journey down its corridors, and then up a 
flight of stairs, and down another deep cor- 
ridor, and up another flight of stairs, and 
finally in some remote place in that struc- 
ture find a cupboard door on which was in- 



56 THE LINE IS BUSY 

scribed "Woman." He thus suggested that 
though womanliness had retreated far back 
in her nature, it was still there and could 
be redeemed. And now for every passage 
in God's book that you may find which says 
that man is sinful I can find two which say 
he is redeemable. God never tells a man 
what he is, without also telHng him what he 
may become. There are plenty of books 
that spread out with deadly reahsm the evil 
that is in a man or woman and then stop; 
but no author is worthy of your reading 
who familiarizes you with crime or sin and 
then stops. You want no surgeon whose 
whole skill is exhausted in taking a diagno- 
sis, who can analyze pain but cannot cure it. 
If Jesus had had no mission to the earth but 
to reveal to man his sinfulness, he never 
would have come down here. He could 
have spent his time to better advantage. 
To preach the gospel does not consist in 
telling men that they are sinners. If I were 
shut up to that, it would break my heart. 
But these are the great truths which answer 
each other in the Gospel: "Thou art a wan- 
derer, but a wandering child. Thou art a 
prodigal, but a prodigal son. Thou art a 



"FOR SUCH A WORM AS I" 57 

sinner, but hast been redeemed. Thou art 
hungry, but may'st be fed. Thou art con- 
demned, but may'st be justified." These 
truths make preaching worth while because 
they show a man what he may become. A 
recognition of this truth, a standing in 
awe of what a man may be, is at the bottom 
of all Christian endeavor. Some people 
who are in the business of discounting hu- 
man nature seem to follow the plan of a 
man who goes into a field of corn in October 
and makes a diligent search for all the nub- 
bins and knotty ears he can find. Then, 
with withering sarcasm, he says, "This is 
the kind of corn this field produces." It is 
unfair to judge a cornfield by the nubbins. 
Why did he not bring the largest finest ears 
he could find, as specimens of what the field 
could do under favorable conditions? It is 
just as unfair to judge our humanity by the 
nubbins and the runts. It is unfair to pick 
out all the mean men and the beastly men 
and the cruel men, the pimps and the sneaks 
and say, "This is your human nature." The 
only adequate presentation of human na- 
ture is to select the finest and grandest men 
that the race has ever produced and offer 



58 THE LIXE IS BUSY 

them as specimens of what hmnanity is, for 
every man has within himself the prophecy 
of the highest manhood, whether that 
prophecy is fulfilled or defeated. 

We ought to thank God that he has made 
us capable of choosing the wrong and the 
false, for that implies the capacity also of 
choosing the right and the true. We ought 
to thank God that he has made it possible 
for us to be wicked, for that implies that it 
is possible for us to be holy, and to be holy 
is to be like God. No sort of preeminence 
will take the place of that. 

Jesus of Nazareth was great not because 
he was a soldier or a poet or a statesman, 
indeed, men never mention him as an illus- 
trious orator, although "never man spake 
like this man." But he is reckoned as the 
greatest of men because of his preeminence 
in holy character. And it is significant that 
what he has commanded us to do and be is 
exactly that which made him most illus- 
trious. He did not say, "Be ye a miracle 
worker as I was," but "Be ye holy as I am 
holy." And now if you will take any kind 
of preeminence and put it alongside of 
what made Christ great it will be eclipsed. 



*TOR SUCH A WORM AS I" 59 

Take eminence in oratory, and what is 
more eloquent than a noble example? Take 
eminence in art, and what picture will com- 
pare with the likeness of Christ in human 
nature? Take poetry, and is not a living 
poem better than a written one? Consider 
mihtary genius, and is not he that ruleth his 
own spirit mightier than he that taketh a 
city? Consider the royalty, and what em- 
peror in his palace has so imperial and abid- 
ing an outfit as those who are clothed with 
the "purple within" and in the lineage of 
Calvary have become "kings and priests 
unto God and the Lamb forever"? 



VI 

STEALING THE ROBES 

Thebe is a feature of the tragedy on Cal- 
vary that is generally overlooked because 
our attention and interest are so occupied 
with the crucified Saviour. The execu- 
tioners of Jesus were professionals. They 
had become so familiar with driving nails 
through the quivering flesh of their victims, 
hearing their cries and viewing the white 
faces of the uphfted dead, that these things 
no longer impressed them. Having cruci- 
fied Jesus with their usual nonchalance, 
they came to the only matter that had any 
interest for them, namely, dividing up his 
garments among them. For these they cast 
lots. It seems terrible to us that the gar- 
ments of Jesus should be taken from him 
and worn by the brutal Romans who nailed 
him to the cross. If the disciples could have 
inherited them, they would have kept them 
sacred. It would have been with some pro- 
priety if Peter had received the sandals 
which with him had gone on so many jour- 
60 



STEALING THE ROBES 61 

neys. The feeling is expressed by Dr. 
David Gregg that if John had been given 
the magic seamless coat that had been 
touched by the sick and dying, imparting 
health and life, it would have been comfort- 
ing to his followers, but for Christ's mur- 
derer to get it and wear it over his "heart 
of stone" seems a sacrilege. But this pic- 
ture of men bespattered with blood gam- 
bling for the garments of the Saviour at the 
foot of his cross is not altogether an ancient 
one. It is painfully modern. The twen- 
tieth century is populated with many who 
are eager to use the blessings that come 
from Christ, but do not prize him. They 
think they could not get along without the 
clothes of Jesus, but will not appropriate 
him to their perishing selves. They crucify 
Christ, but they wear and enjoy his robes, 
(1) The clothes of Jesus were for his 
protection and comfort. They protected him 
from extremes of weather, from cold and 
rain and storm, and were in the interest of 
his comfort. The executioners took from 
him protection and comfort, but crucified 
him. It is a picture of people in our times 
and in our commimity who want the pro- 



62 THE LINE IS BUSY 

tection of Christian civilization and the 
comforts of Christian civilization, but do 
not want Christ. Indeed, they will "glory in 
our civil rights, secured and transmitted to 
us by our forefathers," but do not care any- 
thing about the God of our forefathers. 
Everybody knows that the influence of 
Christ's religion in any conmiunity is to 
make things safe and life secure. But be- 
hold the many who avail themselves of the 
security, but reject the giver. In Ocean 
Grove, a religious resort by the sea, I found 
many Jews and unbehevers who with their 
famihes were spending the summer there. 
Other worldly resorts were near by, but 
knowing that their famihes would be safe 
in a Christian resort, they stole the clothes 
of Jesus, but sneered at him. It is a notice- 
able fact in this country that our skeptical 
friends take particular pains to keep around 
where the shadow of the church falls and 
where Christian standards abound. There 
is a story of a young man who in college 
professed to be an infidel. When out hunt- 
ing with his uncle in the West he was 
obhged to seek lodging in a httle cabin in 
the mountain. Both were alarmed for their 



STEALING THE ROBES 63 

safety during the night. By arrangement 
the young man began the night-watch, re- 
volver in hand, while the uncle slept. The 
latter was to go on watch duty at midnight 
and be on guard till morning, but very early 
in the evening the uncle was aroused by his 
nephew coming to bed. He had peeped 
through a crack in the wooden wall into the 
other room and saw the rough mountaineer 
arise from his chair, and take a Bible from 
the shelf and read. He then knelt down to 
pray. The young man's fears suddenly de- 
parted when he learned that he was guest 
in a home where the Bible was read and 
prayer was offered. Here was an example 
of taking the protection which Christ offers, 
but crucifying him with unbehef . 

Is it not significant that there is not on 
record any evidence that the world knew 
any such a thing as a charitable institution 
before Christ? Does not the historian tell 
us that in the chronicles of ancient Constan- 
tinople and of ancient Borne "descriptions 
^re found of all pubHc edifices, but no refer- 
ence whatever to a charitable institution," 
whereas in the realm of present-day gospel in- 
fluence such institutions form a conspicuous 



64 THE LINE IS BUSY 

part of a modern city's glory? Institutions 
of mercy and help follow the cross of Christ, 
wherever that cross goes, yet how many re- 
ceive the mercy and alleviations afforded 
with no gratitude to the Giver! 

(2) The raiment of Jesus stands for re- 
spectability. The cruel soldiers could take 
these clothes and wear them and thus make 
themselves outwardly decent. This, there- 
fore, the soldiers did, but they crucified 
Christ. Decency and respectabihty are 
about all some people get out of Christian- 
ity. Now, the gospel has always been pro- 
ductive of excellent behavior. Its ideals are 
such that civilities and refinements are 
necessarily manifested. But I have found 
a class of people who, under the influence 
of prevaihng sentiment, have had just 
enough of the outward effects of the gospel 
to cause them to simulate the customs and 
manners of good people and thus fancy they 
have found aU there is in Christianity, 
Such a man seems to become incased in 
something that is absolutely impervious to 
gospel appeal. His little imaginary good- 
ness acts hke a lightning rod pushed up over 
his life and it carries off the strongest bolt 



STEALING THE ROBES 65 

of gospel lightning that may be flashed 
toward him. 

See that hard-visaged and brutal Roman 
soldier taking up the seamless robe of Jesus, 
which became his by a "lucky throw of the 
dice," and throwing it around his own shoul- 
ders, parading up and down the Calvary 
hillside. A passing observer might con- 
clude it was the Master himseK, for he has 
the Master's robe. But a look into his 
wicked face and a knowledge of his sinful 
life makes the thing a mortifying incon- 
gruity. There is only one thing equal to 
that in irony: it is when a citizen of Chris- 
tendom wears the garb of respectabiUty 
woven by Christian associations and by it 
covers up a life which by its worldhness or 
its neglect or unbehef has crucified Christ. 

(3) But let us not forget that the raiment 
of Jesus had intrinsic value. The seamless 
robe and the other garments of his sacred 
person were worth something to the sol- 
diers; Christ himself was worth nothing. 
If the question of modern conmiercialism, 
"What is there in it?" had been asked of 
them, their only answer would have been, 
"The clothes." I would not take the re- 



66 THE LINE IS BUSY 

sponsibility of saying how many or who are 
interested in Christianity to-day because of 
"what there is in it" from a worldly stand- 
point, but Christ foretold there would be 
many such. During his three years' min- 
istry he became very popular with the mul- 
titude because he healed the people of dis- 
eases and gave them food, but they did not 
value him because of his redeeming mission 
and his noble character. Is not virtue some- 
times esteemed simply because it pays? Is 
not righteousness esteemed sometimes be- 
cause it is good for the health, promotes 
good standing in the community, and tends 
to increase the bank account? In answer- 
ing the question "Which is the greatest 
commandment?" do not some say, "The one 
that pays the best," at the same time regard- 
ing that as the least commandment which 
pays the least? Let us have a care that the 
man does not get lost in the merchant, for 
there are crucial times in hfe when the true 
man will do right though it does not seem 
to be paying and will adhere to honesty 
when it spells a temporal sacrifice. If a 
man has won the hand of a maiden in mar- 
riage and is proven to be chiefly interested 



STEALING THE ROBES 67 

in the wedding presents and in the fortune 
which his bride will bring with her, he is 
"more of a merchant than a lover." As every 
bride wants to be loved for what she is and 
for her own sake, and not for what she pos- 
sesses, so does the Lord Jesus yearn for the 
devotion of disciples who will love him not 
for the sake of his garments, not for the sake 
of what is comfortable and safe and grati- 
fying and popular, but for the sake of his 
beauty, nobility, and goodness. "Cling to 
him," said Dr. Watkinson, "not only when 
he answers our questions, but when he is 
silent; not only when he is fashionable, but 
when he is forsaken; not only when disciple- 
ship insures wealth and honor, but when it 
involves disgrace and poverty; not only be- 
cause he can make us perfect, but because 
he is perfection." The soldiers cast lots for 
the garments of Jesus, but why did they 
not cast lots for his holiness? Why did they 
not cast lots for his wisdom? Why did they 
not cast lots for his gentleness and good- 
ness? These could not be transferred like 
a garment. They did take away from him 
everything they could lay their hands on: 
they took away his legal rights; they took 



68 THE LINE IS BUSY 

away his liberty; they took away his blood, 
his clothes, and his life, but they could not 
get hold of his glory. They could not take 
away the splendor of himself. Herein is a 
parable. The greatness of a man consists in 
that which burglars cannot carry off nor 
men destroy, because it is within. It is not 
in what one possesses, but in what he is. If 
from some folks you should take away their 
beautiful raiment and they had nothing 
beautiful left, or if you should take away 
their splendid houses and they had nothing 
splendid remaining, what could we say? 
We would say this : "Behold Jesus hanging 
on the cross without power or friends or 
money, or even a garment, yet proving his 
nobihty by saving the thief by his side and 
by forgiving the soldiers who nailed him to 
the cross, and proving it so convincingly 
that even the centurion cried out, "Truly 
this is the Son of God." 



VII 

THE TEST THAT TELLS 

The Greeks estimated a man by his re- 
search. The Jews estimated a man by tech- 
nical observances ; the Spartans by the force 
with which he could hurl a javelin. The 
Romans estimated a man by his nationaUty. 
To them there were only two great encamp- 
ments of men: those who were Romans and 
those who were not. Lord Chesterfield 
claimed to correctly estimate a man by the 
way he said "Good morning" or by his man- 
ners at the tea table. EngUshmen are said 
to have great reverence for one who trails 
fragments of the alphabet after his name. 
In America it is possible to do a great deal 
of oscillating between a high and a low esti- 
mate of society. He who rides to-day in 
chariot of golden-wheeled applause will not 
surprise history if to-morrow he be dragged 
through the streets of denunciation, and he 
whose name to-day writhes beneath the lash 
of censure will reason well if he says to him- 

69 



70 THE LINE IS BUSY 

self: "I will wait. There will be a reaction. 
Curses will be followed by eulogistic edi- 
torial, serenade, and bouquets." 

It is significant that the world has tape- 
lines and scales for estimating men that do 
not engage the piercing eye of Heaven. 
Like Samuel scanning Eliab, we say, "He 
is of good stature and countenance," but 
the Lord looketh on the heart. 

The tailor wiE beat the universities 
in making a man according to the stand- 
ards of some. There are those who say, 
"As a man seemeth to be pious," "As he 
seemeth to be wise, so is he." There are 
those who say, "As a man arranges his 
toilet," or "As he rideth in his limousine, so 
is he," but Inspiration dips a different ther- 
mometer into the temperature of a man's 
true selfhood when it says, "As a man 
thinketh in his heart, so is he." The heart 
is the determining power of life. It is the 
middle and the center of activity. In this 
wonderful body of ours there is a throbbing, 
vital center, which by its perpetual enter- 
prise floats little fleets of life to the most 
distant harbors of the body, carrying their 
red cargo to the very fingertips. Likewise 



THE TEST THAT TELLS 71 

at the center of all moral decisions and spir- 
itual circulation there is a pulsating self- 
conscious heart which thinks and purposes 
and feels and by so doing sends a tide of 
influence through all the arteries of life, giv- 
ing complexion to its creeds, color to its 
thoughts, tissue and blood to its philosophy. 
Now, when Solomon picked out the heart 
for God he was indicating the easiest kind 
of Christian service. How hard are the 
practice hours of the piano pupil who does 
not love music! Each thump of the keys 
sets all the chords of disgust avibrate. How 
hard it would be to preach a gospel which 
one did not love, or to take our time and 
strength in proclaiming tidings which 
aroused no echo among the hills of our own 
soul! Mechanical rehgion is hard enough. 
But as the engineer takes his oil can and 
moves around upon all sides of his engine, 
pouring lubrication into the wheels and pis- 
tons, so that their movements may become 
superior to friction, so for all the duties of 
our Christian calling, in the performance of 
which we often hear so much screeching 
and rubbing, there is a spiritual oil found 
in the consecrated love of the heart which 



72 THE LINE IS BUSY 

makes the Master's service smooth and well 
doing easy. 

Two men parted on the street corner one 
night with mm-derous intent in their hearts. 
One went to slay the President of the 
United States and succeeded. The other 
went to slay the secretary of state, but 
missed his aim. According to American 
law, man number one is a murderer, but 
man niunber two is not a murderer. But 
according to the judgment of Him who 
looketh where man cannot look, the unsuc- 
cessful assassin was just as guilty as the 
successful one. The fellow who came to 
your chicken-coop to carry off your poultry, 
but was scared away by the watchdog 
before he had gathered up the feathered 
spoil, is just as much of a thief as the man 
who came a half hom* later, when the watch- 
dog was asleep in his kennel, and performed 
a successful theft. The man who swears to 
himself might just as well swear out loud, so 
far as he himself is concerned, for the re- 
cording angel does not indicate whether he 
swore in parentheses or itahcs. Church 
rules may declare the standards of the 
church, but they are of little value to the 



THE TEST THAT TELLS 7a 

individual. Those who love to keep them 
do not need them. There are some church 
adherents who are always whining because 
their church rules forbid dancing, but is 
there any virtue in an unwilling restraint or 
an unwilling keeping of rules? In our 
humble opinion, one might as well go to the 
ball as to stay home and bawl. "As a man 
thinketh in his heart, so is he." Do you sup- 
pose God looks at your feet to see if you are 
guilty? Do you suppose he determines a 
murderer's guilt by the blood on his hands? 
Do you suppose he searches a burglar's 
pockets to prove him guilty of larceny? 
Does he study the expression of a man's 
countenance to determine his piety, or does 
he watch the movements of his lips or listen 
to his words to determine his fidelity and his 
love? 

The nearsighted vision of men cannot 
discern the seeds hidden beneath the sod, 
waiting for the call of the bugle of spring. 
Neither can they behold the purposes and 
intents of a man, hidden as they are beneath 
the visible surface of everyday life, but ta 
Him who knows no seasons, the purposes 
and determinations of the heart are ever 



74 THE LINE IS BUSY 

visible. If, then, all manhood is measured 
by heart-throbs; if the fingertips of Destiny 
are washed by the tide which flows out from 
this vital center; if the heart is the great 
commander before whom all other leaders 
of hf e must lay down their lances, how im- 
perative it is that our hearts should beat in 
unison with the ideal right in the bosom of 
God! How shall human actions be made 
right? In answer, let us ask how shall the 
watch-maker fix the "out-of-fix" watch so 
that it will indicate correct time on the dial? 
Suppose he takes your watch, looks up at 
the regulator and turns the hands to indi- 
cate half -past eight and hands it back to you 
saying, "There now, I have fixed your 
watch." You say, "Oh, no, my watchmaker 
friend, you have only turned the hands. 
Very soon it will be wrong again. Some 
spring has become infirm. Some wheel has 
shpped a cog, or some mote of dust has 
blockaded the revolutions. If you will re- 
pair the works, the hands, I am sure, will 
move correctly." Now we know how human 
actions are expected to move upon the face 
of life, and we know how such a thing can 
be, that a man may draw near to Jesus with 



THE TEST THAT TELLS 75 

his mouth, while his heart is far from him. 
I was about to say also that we feel the 
utter vanity of pointing out any particular 
hour of the Christian's standard time, 
mechanically. Somebody must fix the 
works. You must say to the Divine Lapi- 
dary: "My heart's jewels need resetting. 
Its little wheels of purpose need dusting 
and cleaning. Its gearing needs heavenly 
oil." "Create within me a clean heart, O 
God, and renew within me a right spirit." 
Then will my hands and feet and lips move 
at the impulse of thy love and I shall keep 
good time. 

And now let me tell you a secret — ^no, it 
is not a secret. It has become a manifest 
truth. A man's force in this world is meas- 
ured by his heart force. It cannot be meas- 
ured by his education in books. It is not 
determined by those social niceties which 
are so complimented by the superficial. It 
is determined by the passion of his life. A 
whole-hearted man will be felt anywhere. 
If you drop him down in the wilderness, the 
birds and reptiles and the beasts of the 
wildwood will soon find out that he is there. 
He is always a powerful man. He may be 



76 THE LINE IS BUSY 

in the wrong; then he will be powerful for 
the wrong. He may be right; then he will 
be powerful for the right. "What moves 
the world?" is a frequent question. It is not 
instinct. It is not logic. It is not evolution. 
I teU you it is heart that is moving the 
world. Moral evil becomes the great e\dl, 
and moral good becomes the great good, be- 
cause "as a man thinketh in his heart, so 
is he." 

It is absolutely certain that every one of 
us may add himself, and, indeed, cannot 
avoid adding himself to one of the forces 
which are pushing the world. Let it be our 
aim to be, not a centrifugal force, to make 
the world fly off into the wild tangents of 
error and sin, but a centripetal force and 
power that will help keep the old world of 
humanity on the track of Truth and hold it 
safe in one continuous and unbroken orbit 
around the Sun of Righteousness. 



VIII 
SMOKELESS CHIMlSrEYS 

As these lines are written, millions of 
manufacturing establishments are silent. 
No smoke is coming out of their chimneys. 
Vast acres of machinery are dumb. Work- 
men are idle, and capital is idle, and both 
are losing. That affects the grocer, the 
butcher, and the baker. With no wages 
coming in, folks must live on less. The old 
suit is worn another season. Shoes which 
had been discarded are brought out from 
the closet and sent to the repair shop. Few 
permits have been sought for building 
houses, and families have doubled up. Fur- 
niture dealers and clothiers flung out great 
headlines in their newspaper "ads" and told 
a story of "wonderful reductions," but the 
"multitude passed by." It was to them as 
an idle tale. All this affects church budgets 
and indirectly affects the work of the King- 
dom in Africa and China, for missionary 
enterprises started in those distant parts are 
obliged to wait. 

The lesson of mutual interdependence in 
77 



78 THE LINE IS BUSY 

the commercial world was never more 
graphic. 

The North has learned that it is not inde- 
pendent of the South, and certainly the 
East has discovered that it cannot run its 
boarding houses without the West. Every 
time Columbia's heart beats there are a 
hundred milhon pulse beats. We have been 
taking hard lessons lately, but perhaps hard 
lessons are remembered the longer. We 
have heard of a case of larceny where a man 
was accused of entering a tent and commit- 
ting a theft. It was proven by the defend- 
ant's attorney that only the right arm and 
shoulder of his client entered the tent, 
whereupon the wise judge sentenced the 
right arm and right shoulder of the accused 
to prison, remarking that he could do as he 
pleased with the rest of his body. Interde- 
pendence is no more a law of the body than 
it is of society. What is good for my head 
must be good for my feet. What is bad for 
my right hand must be bad for my left hand. 
As society becomes more complex the prin- 
ciple becomes more manifest that one class 
cannot say to another class, "I have no need 
of thee." The brain worker is dependent 



SMOKELESS CHIMNEYS 79 

on his hand worker. Mr. Edison, when he 
gets an idea, calls in his pattern maker and 
explains to him as best he can what he is 
thinking about. "I get you," says the 
artisan. 

"All right," says Mr. Edison; "go ahead 
and make it." 

He cannot make his own conceptions. 
He is dependent on his designer. 'No man 
is complete in himself. One partner is 
sanguine of losses. The other partner has 
an eye only for profits. They need each 
other. 

What believers we are in independence, 
yet such a thing does not exist! Are the 
rich independent? I was in the home of a 
milhonaire. It was a frigid day, with the 
thermometer below zero, but there was no 
fire in the house. The members were shiver- 
ing in overcoats and shawls. It seemed 
strange, for I had just come from the homes 
of poor people over in the "addition," and 
there the people were sitting around roaring 
fires with all the comforts of home. But 
the rich family was suffering. What was 
the trouble? They were waiting for the 
plumber. The pipes had burst. This 



80 THE LINE IS BUSY 

family of wealth was the most dependent 
family visited. 

Here is a suggestion of what constitutes 
a flourishing and useful church. It is a 
company of Christian kindred who are 
loyal to their dependencies. The office- 
bearers, teachers, singers, hearers, preach- 
ers, and caretakers all function. 

If it be .true that "no man hveth to him- 
self," it is equally true that no hfe ter- 
minates on itself. It was a good riddance 
when the first king of Israel left the throne, 
but whenever his name was mentioned after- 
ward a "withering biography" was attached 
to it which said, "Jeroboam, the son of 
Nebat, who made Israel to sin." In con- 
trast to that, when David left the throne he 
continued to reign, for his devotion con- 
tinued to articulate in the memory of the 
people and unfold in the ideas which he 
planted. It is likewise true in our Uttle 
kingdoms. We will never be able to suc- 
cessfully deny that we have lived, for the 
marks of influence, for good or evil, will 
remain as indehble proofs of the fact. 
Every one expects to find these marks in 
the home and in its children. A lady visitor 



SMOKELESS CHIMNEYS 81 

came into the home of an acquaintance and, 
rushing over to the couch, picked up the 
baby and said, "Oh, Mrs. M., the baby 
looks just like you," not knowing that the 
particular baby under consideration be- 
longed to a neighbor woman who at that 
moment was back in the kitchen. It was 
only a trifling mistake, but it betrayed the 
fact that so well grounded is the universal 
expectation that the child will be like its 
parent that it is hardly worth while to look 
closely before announcing it. The philos- 
ophy of childhood has been edited by ex- 
perience so long that juniors are expected 
to be second editions of the seniors. No 
man's life terminates with himself. If, 
therefore, you have a Christian standard of 
conduct, you will not lose anything by 
maintaining it and will not gain anything 
by lowering it. Will one win the regard of 
people on a lower plane of living by de- 
scending to their plane or by inviting them 
up to a higher plane? That question has 
been answered by the work of Dr. Hough- 
ton, rector of the "Little Church Around 
the Corner," in New York. It appears 
that by a thoughtful kindness to actors he 



82 THE LINE IS BUSY 

gained the affection of the whole theatrical 
profession. Members of this profession 
came to his chm-ch in great numbers, for 
they regarded him as their best friend. 
Yet the rector never attended the theater. 
He did not win the confidence of the stage 
folk by going down to their level. To a 
noted actor, who had asked him why he 
never came to the theater, he said, "When 
you want me for your sick and dying, 
would you rather find me in the dress circle 
or at the rectory?" Coming from such a 
source, this is a great testimony to the prop- 
osition that devotion to duty commends it- 
self more to the lax than laxity will com- 
mend itself. Promoters do not expect to 
win adherents to one position while occupy- 
ing another. 

Close upon the heels of interdependence, 
there follows the imperative of fraternal 
responsibihty. Cain killed Abel and then 
asked, "Am I my brother's keeper?" If he 
wanted information on that subject, he 
should have asked before. After Christ's 
short residence in this world no Christian 
creed can leave out the item that "We are 
our brother's keeper in the noblest sense." 



SMOKELESS CHIMNEYS 83 

If you go out into the country and see 
your neighbor's horse by the roadside going 
astray, and when you come back home read 
the owner's advertisement in the paper and 
leam of his great anxiety, yet remain silent, 
your indifference would be regarded as 
criminal by many a conscience that makes 
no claim to being Christian. But I bid you 
notice that if one has fraternal responsibil- 
ity at that point, he also has it in a much 
higher sense. Let us all agree that it is 
one's duty to tell what he knows about a 
straying horse and assist in its recovery. 
But what about the horse's owner? Sup- 
pose one discovers that he is straying away 
into dangerous and wrong courses, shall he 
raise no alarm? What if the owner's tastes 
and ideals and habits are found straying 
away from purity and uprightness and get- 
ting lost in the thick old woods of error, 
shall the discoverer raise no alarm? If I 
am the keeper of my brother at all, I am his 
keeper in the highest sense. I am the keeper 
of his reputation, of his good name, of his 
heart, mind, and soul and destiny, of what- 
ever in him is most enduring. 

Thank God for the many bright spots 



84 THE LINE IS BUSY 

manifested on the dark background of the 
Great War in Europe. Food became an 
evangel. In a home far away on a Western 
farm and far removed from any raikoad, at 
the dinner table one day, the youngest, four 
years old, was sprinkling sugar on his baked 
apple and incidentally spilling some outside 
the dish. The mother said, "Phihp, if you 
waste sugar that way, brother won't get 
any." Then Philip opened his brown eyes 
wide, dropped his spoon and said, "Then I 
won't eat no sugar," and conservation was 
begun in earnest by the child's thought of 
that wonderful soldier brother, far away in 
France, having to get along without sugar. 
A certain housewife during that conserva- 
tion period declared the hardest lesson she 
had to learn was "patriotic housekeeping," 
which was not always the most economical. 
Sometimes the "war bread" cost more than 
the good bread. Sometimes the "meat sub- 
stitutes" cost more than the meat, but said 
she, "For the sake of our soldiers and 
sailors and overburdened allies we were im- 
pelled to use the substitutes regardless of 
cost." The war released much hate, but 
very much more of love and sacrifice. 



IX 

PERSONALITY AND THE 
KINGDOM 

The directness of the New Testament is 
startling. I challenge anybody to arise 
from a faithful reading of it without having 
the feeUng that it has been talking to him. 
While its chief Figure walked among men 
over two thousand years ago; while its epis- 
tles were originally written to people who 
are no longer citizens of this world; while 
much of it may be explained away by local 
significance, yet no honest man can arise 
from its perusal without the convictions that 
its truths are for him, its warnings are for 
him, its judgments are for him, its prom- 
ises may be for him, and its Christ is for 
him. Let us consider therefore — what? 
The church and the Kingdom? No. Society 
and the Kingdom? No. The public and 
the Kingdom? No; but personality and the 
Kingdom. By this time we have all found 
out that society is made up of personalities. 
85 



86 THE LINE IS BUSY 

All public strength has been private 
strength. All public opinion has been per- 
sonal opinion. It is in these private views 
and efforts that world-wide movements 
have their genesis. 

The individual is called. The calls of 
God are not in the third person, not the 
second person plural, but the second person 
singular. It is not him, or them, or those, 
but thou and thee. The Ten Command- 
ments are not in the third person, else they 
might not discover me, or you might coxmt 
yourself out; but ^^^T^oi^ shalt have no other 
gods before me." ''Thou shalt not steal." 
''Thou shalt love the Lord thy God." I be- 
lieve in divine calls. I beheve in a divine 
call to preach. It is a popular notion that 
the ministry is "entered" like any other 
profession, but I am sorry for the man who 
enters the ministry at his own call. When 
God calls a preacher he does not blow a 
trumpet in his ear. I refer to my own 
miserable experience because it seemed in- 
separably connected with my own salva- 
tion. It came at a time when it seemed out 
of order and after another work had been 
entered upon. Why did God wait until I 



PERSONALITY 87 

had chosen another profession and then 
overtake me with the conviction that I must 
abandon all and preach his gospel, and have 
it so pressed upon me that meal time came 
without appetite, evening came with greater 
weariness than if I had been breaking stone 
on the street, and morning came after sleep- 
less tossings? But perhaps that was God's 
way of letting one know that he had some- 
thing to do with it and of having some at- 
tention paid to his call. Then I wondered 
what my mother would think about it, for 
she had been thinking for a long time that I 
was not a very serious lad. When, there- 
fore, with much trembling I told her my 
conviction, imagine my surprise when she 
replied, "Why, my son, I have been expect- 
ing this." And then I learned that when 
she gave me to God in baptism she had 
given me to him for the work of the min- 
istry. She had never told me. She had 
kept her secret well, and twenty years after- 
ward that consecration came back to earth 
and found me in northern Ohio and woke 
me up with the message, "The Master call- 
eth thee." Akin to that is the call to a life 
of faith. Have you heard it, or are you like 



88 THE LINE IS BUSY 

the folks that Kve in the neighborhood of 
Niagara and who do not hear the roar of the 
cataract? 

The greatest sounds and sights on earth 
may become conmionplace. When a tour- 
v'ing company of us had reached the Grand 
Canyon of the Yellowstone, after many 
days of carriage riding, we alighted from 
the carriages to look at the great pano- 
rama, and I said to "Dixon," the old park 
driver, "You had better hitch the horses 
and go and take a look." 

"Oh, no," he said, "I have seen it so many 
times." 

We crept out to the edge of "Inspiration 
Point" and for the first time looked down 
into that awful gorge where God had writ- 
ten his frescoes and which some time in the 
past had captured a bimch of sunsets and 
held them fast, and they were now glinting 
from a hundred cathedral towers and min- 
arets and flashing in the rainbows that 
spanned the "Lower FaUs." In the pres- 
ence of that vision splendid our anxieties 
were forgotten and our skepticism, if we 
ever had any, was overwhelmed as we stood 
hushed and reverent listening to the speech 



PERSONALITY 89 

of God. Was it just because the scene was 
new to us? When we had gone back to the 
carriages I begged old "Dixon" to go and 
take a look, but he smiled at my enthusiasm 
and said he had seen it before. I have 
thought of the old mountaineer's answer a 
thousand times, and have wondered how 
the gospel becomes commonplace to men so 
that they have no eyes for its glory and no 
ears for its musical invitation, and how Hfe 
itself sometimes becomes disenchanted of 
its great meanings. It need not lose its 
attractiveness and become stale. Life may 
be kept fresh and lustrous. By living a life 
of simple helpfulness and with a trust that 
keeps us busy in his service, like Jacob of 
old (even after sorrows have smitten), we 
may reenchant the earth and the sky, we 
again may gloriously dream, see the ladder 
let down, hear the rustUng wings and behold 
the angel faces, and to the end may see a 
holy blush resting upon the details of our 
common life. "The fool hath said in his 
heart. There is no God." Yes, but there is 
yet a greater fool than he, and it is the fool 
who believes that God is and yet lives as if 
he were not. Who is guilty of the greater 



90 THE LINE IS BUSY 

folly? He who does not believe in the doc- 
trine of gravitation or he who knows that 
gravitation is a fact and yet with that 
knowledge goes to the treetop or the house- 
top and attempts to walk out on the air as if 
gravitation were not a fact? It occurs to 
me so often in these days that the worst 
kind of atheism is exhibited when the life is 
occupied in denying God — ^knowing him to 
be a fact and yet treating him as though he 
were a fiction. 

The individual is responsible. The fact 
that God calls for him makes him respon- 
sible for answering. None may answer for 
him. We blame the city and say it is bad, 
but there is no badness apart from per- 
sons. People complain of what the council 
did, but there is no council apart from cer- 
tain persons. It is a great test to be in a 
crowd that is going to act, for responsibility 
gets spread out and is very thin sometimes. 
Passing strange that men will do in councils 
and in boards and congregations what they 
would not do over their own signatiu:e. 
While this is an age of corporations and a 
man tries to lose himself in the "firm," God 
never loses him, but transacts business with 



PERSONALITY 91 

him every day, and finds out how near alike 
he may be to the Negro who made an as- 
signment, and in giving a statement of his 
financial condition said that he had two hmi- 
dred dollars assets and fourteen hundred 
dollars of "unreliabilities." It is certainly 
fair to say that in the business of being a 
son of the living God our "unreliabilities" 
ought not to be the most conspicuous part 
about us. As active or passive personalities 
in the business of life we cannot get rid of 
responsibility. When those two trains came 
together on the railroad the other day, the 
question upon every oflicial's lip was, "Who 
did it?" 

A few telegrams back and forth and it 
was found that a signal agent had given 
the wrong signal. It was only a mistake in 
the color of hght that was thrown into a 
signal tower, but the difference between a 
red light and a green light made the differ- 
ence between life and death to a score of 
passengers. Can it be possible that a man 
is held responsible for the color of light 
which he throws into the signal tower of a 
railway system and is not responsible for 
the quality of hght which goes out from his 



92 THE LINE IS BUSY 

life and by which travelers to eternity take 
their bearings? 

Religion by proxy has never worked well, 
all because duty cannot be deputized. You 
cannot deputize another to sleep for you, or 
to eat for you, or look upon a beautiful 
landscape for you ; much less can moral obh- 
gation be deputized to another. Gehazi 
could do nothing with Elisha's staff. We 
are great folks for committees to be sure. 
We have committees on music, incidentals, 
and finance, but we cannot appoint commit- 
tees to die for us or go to the Judgment 
for us, and we may not elect delegates to 
eternity. 

PersonaHty has a power. A large part 
of the work of schools and colleges and 
churches nowadays consists in shaping the 
personahty. The very name of one so 
shaped becomes an asset to be reckoned 
with. I was a visitor in a paper mill one 
day and the proprietor was showing me 
courtesies not a few. Among other things 
exhibited was a delicate scale for weighing 
single sheets of paper. Taking a very fine 
onion-skin sheet of paper he put it on the 
scale and balanced it. After thus weighing 



PERSONALITY 93 

the thin sheet on the scale he took it off and 
with a lead pencil wrote my name on it. On 
putting it back on the scale pan the latter 
went down with a bang that startled me. 
That was the first time I knew that my 
name weighed anything. Listen — your 
name weighs something; your example 
weighs something; your opinion, your influ- 
epce weighs something with somebody. We 
have heard of a man who said that he 
weighed one hundred and forty pounds, but 
when he was mad he weighed a ton. In dis- 
cerning that fact he was a philosopher, for 
every man ought to weigh a ton on the side 
of his greatest earnestness. The demand 
of the times is for men of weight, whose 
moral avoirdupois is heavy on the right side. 
How much do you weigh in the cause of 
goodness? How much do you weigh in 
making your church a power in the com- 
munity? How much do you weigh in lift- 
ing your acquaintances up to a higher plane 
of thinking and feeUng and doing? 

Thus far we have gone along together and 
most likely we are in comparative agree- 
ment about this matter. I am not quite 
so sure, however, that you will agree to the 



94. THE LINE IS BUSY 

following statement, namely, that the 
measure of personal obUgation is limited 
only by the power, the forces which are at 
one's command. For example, the duties 
of a ship captain are not determined by his 
naked eye ; they are determined by what he 
can see with his spyglass; by what his 
barometer tells him and by what the 
mariner's needle indicates. If he does not 
apply to the running of his ship the informa- 
tion furnished him by these instruments, he 
is almost, if not altogether, a criminal. 
Suppose a government prisoner in the At- 
lanta penitentiary is sentenced to be exe- 
cuted on a certain day. The President of 
the United States, however, having gone 
over the case, makes out a pardon for the 
prisoner and handing it to a government 
messenger with instructions to stop the exe- 
cution, bids him make haste. The messen- 
ger starts at once, without a moment's 
delay, to walk to Atlanta to deliver the mes- 
sage and the pardon. He arrives a week 
too late, and after the execution has taken 
place. Now he justifies himself with the 
declaration, "I walked as fast as ever I 
could," and no doubt he did; but ought he 



i 



PERSONALITY 95 

not be punished for not using the telegraph 
and express train? His obligation was lim- 
ited only by the forces at his command. 
What I am thinking about is this: our re- 
sponsibility as Christians is determined, not 
by what we can do by our own unaided 
efforts, but by using the forces at our dis- 
posal. As long as one can, through the 
power of Christ offered him, overcome a be- 
setting sin he will be held responsible for 
doing so. As long as one may be something 
more than a passably decent church mem- 
ber, he will be held responsible for what he 
might be. Not only am I responsible for 
what I am, but also for what I might be- 
come by making use of divine forces. I am 
therefore persuaded that you and I as pro- 
phetic personahties of efficiency must be in- 
spired for our task as certainly as Moses 
was inspired to give the Decalogue, or as 
Peter to wring the hearts of the three thou- 
sand, or as Paul to make Felix tremble. 
There is a diversity of task but the same 
spirit. 

Often we have been awed by the sign on 
the traction which says, "Don't talk to the 
motorman"; but once I did, and was glad 



96 THE LINE IS BUSY 

of it, for he told me a few things. All 
others had ahghted from the car and we 
were alone and out near the end of the line. 
He talked of the old days when the mules 
furnished the motive power for the street 
cars and recalled how the driver had to 
wrench the reins and use the whip. It took 
a lot of shouting and whipping and swear- 
ing to make the car go. It was a wearing 
business on the driver and put a careworn 
haggard expression upon his countenance. 
But now he stands in his little vestibule with 
his hand upon the lever, and as this friendly 
motorman said to me, "It is a mighty com- 
fort to know that there is more power here 
than I can possibly use." How wonder- 
fully fascinating it is that one may hold such 
a power right under his thumb 1 He need 
use no whip nor speak sharply. He does 
not even wonder if he can get up the hill, for 
he knows that at the touch of his hand a 
million Samsons will leap to do his bid- 
ding. I wonder if we would be so hesitant 
in imdertaking big enterprises for the Mas- 
ter if we knew that all his resources were 
subject to our check. It will be a great gain 
when we count ourselves as the Lord's 



PERSONALITY 97 

motormen and keep in vital touch with the 
power house. It will put tonic in our hearts 
to operate with the consciousness that all 
the omnipotence of our Lord is placed at our 
disposal. 



X 

HAVE A HAPPY HABIT 

We have not been in the habit perhaps 
of thinking of happiness as a duty, but 
rather as a good fortune, a lucky find, con- 
cerning which the popular idea is 

"And blessed is the chap 

Into whose lap 
It may hap." 

Very different does it seem in the hght of 
the command, "Rejoice in the Lord 
always." If one of the commands of the 
Decalogue said, "Thou shalt not have the 
blues," it would not be more direct than this. 
But the Bible idea of happiness is not the 
daily giggle of the simpleton, or the constant 
grin of the fool, or the guffaw of the night 
reveler; but it is the by-product of that dis- 
position which, with a heart firmly fixed in 
God, beheves that all crooked places wiU be 
made straight and that for all who strive for 
it and pray for it good wiU be the final goal 
of all seeming ills — a disposition that finds 
98 



HAVE A HAPPY HABIT 99 

good in men and good in events. Cheerful- 
ness is a habit which we owe to ourselves. 
It is the best preventative of ill health and 
conducive to good health. With a confi- 
dence that all things will turn out for the 
best and that all things will work together 
for the good of those that love God, it will 
bring a man to convalescence against most 
adverse conditions. There was good psy- 
chology and more in the confession of the 
Methodist who in the love feast owned up 
that he had been hving on "Grumbling 
Street," where the air was bad, and the 
water was bad, and the house was bad, and 
the birds never stayed. "But," he said, "I 
flitted; I moved over to Thanksgiving 
Avenue and found the air pure and the 
house good and the water fine. The birds 
warble in the tree tops and the neighbors 
are most congenial." When one sets out to 
be a Christian he owes it to himself to avoid 
all coimterfeits. The popular notion of re- 
ligion does not do it justice. It is a tune in 
the minor key, played very slowly and with 
the tremulo stop out. It supposes that all 
good things are to be given up now for the 
sake of a good time in the sweet by and by. 



100 THE LINE IS BUSY 

It regards Christianity as something to be 
endured rather than something to be en- 
joyed. The popular idea of religion is un- 
true. It is not a requiem, but a paean of vic- 
tory. "Normalcy'* is a word that has come 
into recent use. When the mind is normal 
it is a pleasure to think. When the diges- 
tion is normal it is a pleasiu*e to eat. When 
the Christian disposition is normal it is "re- 
joicing in the Lord." That is its healthful 
state. If one's rehgion agrees with him, if 
it fits him, if it is acting well, it is charac- 
terized by joyfulness. But if it is a source 
of annoyance, if it is always in the road, if 
it is so much burden to carry or so much dis- 
agreeableness to be "put up with" for the 
sake of a dividend of joy in the future, re- 
ligious life in that condition is abnormal. 

Now, it is not trouble that makes folks 
unhappy, it is the low tone in which it 
catches them. One day a person may be 
driven almost to distraction by the buzzing 
of a blue-bottle fly on the window pane, but 
another day no notice whatever will be 
taken of the same performance. The dif- 
ference in nervous tone accounts for the dif- 
ference in effect. It is similarly true in 



HAVE A HAPPY HABIT 101 

mental and spiritual condition. What to- 
day may weigh a ton may not weigh an 
ounce to-morrow, but it is downright inap- 
propriate for a Christian to allow trouble to 
catch him so unprepared and lacking the 
shock absorbers of a large manhood. 

It is humiliating for one to have to 
knuckle down to the little cares and attri- 
tions of life. Why will we let petty cares 
conmiand us and make us deny our religion? 
When Sydney Smith was very old, a friend 
wrote inquiring after his health. His reply 
was, "With the exception of three mortal 
diseases I am otherwise quite well." You 
are supposed to have a power within you 
that will give you victory and rejoicing in 
the midst of daily cares. You are supposed 
to be serene when others are disturbed. 
You are supposed to be sweet and cheerful 
amid circumstances which would be dispir- 
iting to those who have no faith power. 
"The Lord is my strength and song," said 
an ancient apostle of good cheer. How can 
that be? Certainly only when one has been 
set "in tune with the Infinite." I am told 
that some folks do not enjoy the "Hallelu- 
jah Chorus," and I can easily understand 



102 THE LINE IS BUSY 

that. Before anyone can enjoy the "Halle- 
lujah Chorus" he must have a little hallelu- 
jah chorus within him. "Rejoice in the Lord 
always." How can I do it when the factory 
is shut down and I am out of work? How 
can I do it when the crop has failed and 
there is the prospect of a hard winter? I 
was awakened at three o'clock this morning 
by the singing of the birds. Out among the 
trees they were singing before breakfast. 
They were singing, though they did not 
know where their next meal was to come 
from. They were singing cheerily just as 
if they had been reading the New Testa- 
ment and imderstood what it means when it 
says, "Behold the fowls of the air, for they 
sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather 
into barns; yet your heavenly Father feed- 
eth them." I stood on the street watching 
faces of passing people, to note, if possible, 
the one who seemed the happiest. I decided 
it was not the man who was going down 
street to business, for he had on his face the 
anxiety for the dollar he was "going to 
make." It was not the man coming back, 
for he had on his face a troubled concern 
for the dollar he had lost. So far as the 



HAVE A HAPPY HABIT 103 

countenance was an index, the happiest per- 
son to be seen on that corner was a woman 
sitting by her little fruitstand knitting. 
And so it has been in all history. We find 
Nero grouchy and unhappy although sit- 
ting on a throne. We find Haman, though 
given the first place in the kingdom, yet 
fretting himself to death because one little 
Jew would not tip his hat or bow down to 
him. He was only "one bow short" yet 
unhappy. But in contrast we find Paul and 
Silas singing in a prison at midnight be- 
cause of a power of soul to which the world 
was a stranger. The optimistic religion of 
the Lord Jesus is exactly what men need 
when they are not suited with what they 
have. Happiness is a mood which we owe 
to each other. Would you go into a sick- 
room and advise the patient of many cases 
similar to his that proved fatal? It would 
likely help him to hear of recoveries. Cheer- 
ful words are "more soothing than chloral, 
more stimulating than cognac, more tonic 
than bitters." Many sick folks recover 
under the influence of cheerful surround- 
ings. Cheerfulness is a duty which a man 
owes to his family. Up at the store or the 



104 THE LINE IS BUSY 

oflSce he has required himself to "look pleas- 
ant" as a business pohey. Ofttimes per- 
haps he has been like the man in the Scrip- 
tures of whom it is said, "His words were 
like butter, but there was war in his heart." 
Whatever his feehngs, he has put on a jolly, 
happy mood for business reasons. How- 
ever, it frequently occurs that the annoy- 
ances of the day get "dammed up." The 
harassments of business detail are danmied 
up during the day, and when the man goes 
home to his family in the evening the dam 
breaks and the domestic circle is deluged 
with scowl and petulance. There is nothing 
heroic in this performance. On the other 
hand, the members of the family should be 
in better business than that of accumulating 
complaints during the day to pour into the 
father's ear as soon as he strikes the front 
steps. Remember he has been answering 
complaints all day, and a change would be 
refreshing. In heaven there are no com- 
plaints, and that makes heaven. The more 
cheer in the home circle, the less use there 
will be for divorce courts. Certainly, a 
happy personality can stand a lot. A sing- 
ing disposition that brings to the affairs of 



HAVE A HAPPY HABIT 105 

life a rejoicing spirit will find cause for joy 
in many a hard experience. 

Cheerfulness in service is something a 
Christian owes to Jesus as a Master. How 
would you like it if you had some one in 
your employ who was continually sad and 
imhappy while working for you, but became 
exhilarated and merry as soon as he began 
to work for somebody else? Would that not 
be a serious reflection on you as a master? 
When a Christian is discontented and dis- 
satisfied in Christian work and life he is a 
poor recommendation for his Lord. He is 
practically saying to all prospects, "Re- 
ligion will make you just as miserable as I 
look, and Christ Jesus is an unpleasant mas- 
ter to serve." What would you think if 
after the wedding the bride should lapse 
into deep melancholy? Remembering that 
always before the wedding day her habit 
was one of well-known merriment, would 
not all her friends have a suspicion that the 
match was a disappointment? 

Well, now, the church is declared to be the 
Bride of Christ. If, therefore, we have been 
truly wedded to him, we will not bring dis- 
honor upon him by doing his will with heavi- 



106 THE LINE IS BUSY 

ness of heart. "Rejoice in the Lord 
always." I have just been out to the 
County Fair which is about the biggest 
thing of its kind in the State. There is a 
good deal of psychology in an agricultural 
fair. The farmers from "aU over" come 
bringing their finest products, to prove the 
excellence of their lands. They come bring- 
ing great ears of corn, overgrown pumpkins 
and beets, luscious melons, beautiful apples 
and pears. The women folk bring their 
golden rolls of butter all carved with rustic 
sculpture and as the thousands of spectators 
pass along they behold in these beautiful 
products the attractiveness of farming. 
How different would be the psychological 
effect, if instead of such products, one man 
would come from Bloom Township bring- 
ing a rag weed, another farmer would come 
from Sciota Township bringing a Canada 
thistle, and still another would come from 
the Center Township bringing a basket of 
nubbins, and they would offer these prod- 
ucts as evidence of their skill and of the ex- 
cellence of their soil! It seems to me that, 
as good tenants of the Great Husbandman, 
we owe it to him to show forth how rich he 



HAVE A HAPPY HABIT 107 

is and how abounding in goodness. Instead 
of making so prominent the sacrifices and 
the hardships of our lives, let us show forth 
the positive, sweet, and beautiful fruits of 
the Christian vocation, such as "rejoicing in 
the Lord." 

Now, these words will have no meaning 
for one who rejects the Messiah of God. If 
he does not believe that Jesus came to the 
world on a mission of ransom and rose from 
the grave to make our life victorious, he has 
a clear right to be full of gloom, to reckon 
life as a grand farce, and all reUgious en- 
deavor useless. There is a tragic story of a 
famous comedian who spent his life in 
making others laugh but could not smile 
himself, and finally he went to a celebrated 
physician for his melancholy. The doctor 
said: "Your case is a very bad one. There 
is only one remedy. You must pray to 
God," "Oh," said the comedian, "then I see 
that my case is incurable, for I do not be- 
lieve in God." It is significant that Jesus 
taught that true seriousness and true happi- 
ness go together. One day when he had fin- 
ished a discourse to his disciples he said: 
"These things I have said unto you that my 



108 THE LINE IS BUSY 

joy might remain with you, and that your 
joy might be full." How it can be that 
earnestness and happiness go together, how 
it can be that a serious view of hf e and the 
world is also the sunniest view, he has best 
illustrated. To him I commend you as to 
the one who has the mastery of this secret 
and who alone can conmiunicate it. 



XI 

THE COURIER OF THE KING 

There is an old story of Roman courier- 
ship that deserves recognition in modern 
systems of social economics. In that 
ancient kingdom there was no telegraphic 
device for the transmission of messages and 
orders, such as now makes the world one 
neighborhood, but government dispatches 
were transmitted by means of mounted 
couriers, and persons of all kinds were re- 
quired by law to show them the way. In 
order to effect the rapid conveyance of the 
emperor's orders his couriers were author- 
ized to press into service men and horses, 
and even vessels. If one of these couriers 
should by chance lose his way in a strange 
mountain or vaUey, he had the right to order 
anyone he might find in the neighborhood, 
in the name of the emperor, to go part of 
the way with him and show him the way out. 
No excuse would reUeve one of this re- 
sponsibility at any time of day or night. 
He must quit work, leave his dinner half 
109 



110 THE LINE IS BUSY 

eaten, or rise at the midnight hour and go 
when the emperor's servant called him and 
show him the way out of his difficulty. It 
was with reference to this custom that Jesus 
in his Sermon on a Mountain (where per- 
haps couriers had been lost) said to his dis- 
ciples, "Whosoever shall compel thee to go 
with him a mile, go with him twain." 

The right of the government courier to 
press other people into his service when 
needed makes prominent the modern claim 
which men have on each other. In the case 
of the courier he was representative of the 
government and the proclamation of the em- 
peror had created the right he exercised. 
To be sure, there is no legal enactment 
making such a claim binding on us to-day 
and here; but as the Sermon on the Mount 
was not intended for one neighborhood or 
empire but for all time and places, it is cer- 
tainly still true that men have rights in each 
other. 

If there wanders to your door a lost child 
who during the sport of the day has drifted 
away from its own familiar street, is any 
law necessary to create the claim which that 
child has on you to show it the way home? 



THE COURIER OF THE KING 111 

If on a lonely highway a helpless woman is 
pitched upon by vagabonds, is any legis- 
lative enactment necessary to create the 
claim that helpless one has on me, passing 
near by, to come to her relief? In such cir- 
cumstances my strength is not my own; it 
belongs to her. I may be in a great hurry to 
get to the next town, but my time is not my 
own. A higher law than human legislators 
can make establishes the right she has to 
expect me to respond to her cries for help. 
But I do not overlook the fact that who- 
ever undertook to show the way to the em- 
peror's courier should certainly have known 
the way himself. Not long since I took the 
train for Dayton and found aboard the 
train a half dozen ladies of my church who 
were going to the same city to a missionary 
convention. They were considerably exer- 
cised about changing cars at a certain junc- 
tion where many branches of the road met. 
I quieted their fears by assuring them that 
I was en route to the same city and all they 
had to do was to watch me and follow me 
and they would arrive at their desired desti- 
nation without mistake. And, sure enough, 
at the junction depot I noticed them watch- 



112 THE LINE IS BUSY 

ing me, while walking back and forth and 
waiting for the proper train to arrive. If 
I entered a door or turned a corner, some of 
them came to see what had become of me. 
They had girded themselves with baggage 
in hand to follow me. At last the train 
came in and I went aboard. They, likewise, 
went aboard and settled themselves in com- 
fort for the remaining journey. Presently 
a yard engine took hold of our car in the 
rear and pulled it up a half mile in the rail- 
road yards and apparently was going to 
leave it there. I then ventured to inquire 
of the brakeman, "Does not this car go to 
Dayton?" 

"No, sah," he repHed, "this car goes to 
Indianapolis." 

And there I was with my ardent fol- 
lowers awakened to the fact that their con- 
fidence had been misplaced, and I was 
rudely shocked by the discovery that I had 
proved a false guide. But as great as was 
my chagrin, it was a small matter compared 
with the awful awakening that one must 
have when he learns that other people have 
gotten on the wrong track in life or the 
wrong route to the eternal life by confi- 



THE COURIER OF THE KING 113 

dently though perhaps unconsciously fol- 
lowing his lead. 

But now draw a little nearer to the Mas- 
ter's words, "Whosoever shall compel thee 
to go with him a mile, go with him two," and 
you will see in them an illustration of the 
Christian disposition. It is this: Do what 
you are compelled to do, plus. In a commu- 
nity hke ours some things are required by the 
customs and standards of the community. 
A man living in a Christian neighborhood is 
required to be decent; but if a Christian at 
heart, he will be more than decent. He will 
be true and good and generous. He will go 
the second mile. He will be respectable, 
and more, too. Living in this prosperous 
society of folks one is compelled by his asso- 
ciates to present a good appearance, but the 
true Christian disposition will not stop satis- 
fied with that first mile, but will go on and 
be just as good as he looks. 

Living in this favored republic one is 
compelled to be law abiding, keep the peace, 
and pay taxes, but will the Christian go no 
further? When the republic is in peril of 
an armed foe, will he not be quick to stand 
among the volunteers, ready both with 



114 THE LINE IS BUSY 

patriotism and bullets to go the second 
mile? 

Still better is that citizenship which, over 
and above legal requirements, is concerned 
to have the country on the side of right, and 
when she is in danger of moral wrong, will 
be as ready to strike for her honor and 
glory. A newer patriotism has been grow- 
ing up in the hearts of our citizens, which 
pants, not so much to die for the country as 
to live for it. For example, it feels that ir- 
religion is a menace to our country with 
which war will not compare. Our new 
patriotism believes that the Bible is the lan- 
tern which God has hung out from the 
heavens for this world's guidance. While 
it burns, it gives light and safety. When it 
goes out, there is decay and darkness and 
death. Any attempt, therefore, to put out 
this light is high treason. As the glory both 
of our flag and civilization has come through 
Christianity, any movement that seeks to 
paganize our government, secularize its 
Sabbaths, undermine its educational sys- 
tem, intoxicate its citizens, promote vice in 
its society or corruption in its offices, is the 
yell of pirates against the ship of state and 



THE COURIER OF THE KING 115 

calls for patriotism as certainly as did the 
cannon shot against Fort Sumter. Sec- 
ond-mile patriotism in foreign policy and in 
home policy is the demand of the hour. 

This principle finds many fields for 
urgent application. Many people feel com- 
pelled to go to church. They feel that they 
must do that for the sake of keeping up ap- 
pearances. They must go that mile, even 
though it be irksome and inconvenient. But 
what about living the spiritual hfe? What 
about taking the religion of Christ into 
heart and home and business? Oh, that 
practical second mile ! None can compel us 
to take it. It must be traveled voluntarily. 
But no earnest disciple of Jesus will stop 
short of it. It is the true exponent of the 
Christian character which is not content to 
stop with the letter but goes on to the spirit. 
It stops not with the doctrine but goes on 
to the new life, stops not with faith but goes 
on to the fruits, stops not with the form but 
journeys on to the power. Public opinion 
or policy may compel one to cover the first 
mile of these familiar couplets, the profes- 
sion, but only genuine earnestness will ad- 
vance upon the second half of the couplets, 



116 THE LINE IS BUSY 

the practical, and cover the twain. Now, 
it is worth remembering that Jesus gave this 
second-mile principle its most brilliant il- 
lustration. He did not propose to redeem 
the lost world, provided he could do it on a 
cheap scale, but he gave his life a ransom. 
He did not announce to a race lost in sin, 
"If you will come half way, I will consider 
going the other half," but he came all the 
way and covered the whole distance of sepa- 
ration between God and man; but have we 
not discovered a tendency among some of 
the Lord's professed disciples to do no 
more than they are compelled to do? 

The searching genius of Rhey Thompson 
discovered that the great questions of many 
people are: "How can I be a Christian with- 
out any loss of time, without any expense, 
and without any inconvenience? How can 
I be a Christian without using my hands 
and without using my tongue? How can I 
serve God and get oflp with as httle trouble 
as possible? How can I go the mile I can- 
not get out of going, but not an inch far- 
ther?" Either these are not the questions 
of a soul that is filled with the love of God 
or else Christ's statement of a Christian 



THE COURIER OF THE KING 117 

disposition is untrue. A religion of love will 
not stop its program at the point where 
policy or pride may dictate, but it will have 
the spirit of the volunteer. It will seek an 
opportunity. It will want to give more 
than was expected. It will seek to surprise 
you with a stroke of kindness. It will go out 
of its way to do good. It will go the second 
mile. This disposition will be curative of 
all labor troubles. As no matter is settled 
until settled right, it is evident that the 
remedies now being applied to this social 
carbuncle will inflame it rather than cure. 
The labor question will never be settled by 
the laws of pohtical economy, for political 
economy is heartless and selfish and pro- 
ceeds on the principle of the survival of the 
fittest. It will never be settled by legisla- 
tive enactment, for when a million men are 
hungry a whole supreme court full of law 
and a whole army of policemen cannot keep 
them quiet. On the other hand, it will not 
be settled by dynamite and anarchy. When 
workingmen blow up the factory they cause 
the bricks and timbers to fall upon their 
own heads. When operators throw the trol- 
ley or train from the track they injure the 



118 THE LIXE IS BUSY 

cause of labor by shutting up both the hand 
of sympathy and the fist of monopoly more 
tightly. After all, was not Gladstone right 
in deciding from the standpoint of a states- 
man that the gospel of Christ is the only 
solution for the inequahties and woes of 
life? The largest soap factory in the world 
has tried it and has never had a strike. One 
cannot go through its many buildings and 
observe the contentment and inspiration of 
its thousands of employees without being 
persuaded that better than all other rem- 
edies for labor troubles would be one drop 
of the disposition of the second mile admin- 
istered to each and every man. If the em- 
ployer had the disposition to pay more than 
he is compelled to pay and the employees 
had the disposition to do more than they are 
obliged to do; if each had that much inter- 
est in the other that he Hved up to the con- 
tract and more, too ; if instead of the capital- 
ist regarding the laborers as so many cattle 
and the laborers regarding their employer 
as a villainous tyrant, they would regard 
each other as men, who had rights in each 
other independent of their contract, the con- 
troversy would cease. 



THE COURIER OF THE KING 119 

The labor question, moreover, is a pro- 
gressive one. It is not the same question it 
was sixty and seventy years ago. Our 
fathers had to decide whether all laborers 
had a right to own themselves, if they could 
have any wages, if they had the right to be 
educated and read the Bible for themselves, 
and they decided these questions rightly. 
Our fathers went their second mile heroic- 
ally. But we stand in the advanced steps 
they took. It may be a very much more 
comphcated question now. It is perhaps 
more difficult to apply the Golden Rule in 
office and factory and kitchen now, but our 
progress is before us and not behind us, and 
we shall not be worthy of our fathers if we 
do not give the Christian disposition the 
right of way and go our second mile. But 
I do not forget the enchantment of all 
Christian service. When a Roman courier 
dashed up to a private citizen and pressed 
him into the service of showing him the way 
out of the woods or mountain fastness, he 
went because the courier represented the 
emperor. To refuse him was to refuse the 
emperor. To favor him would be accepted 
by the emperor as a personal favor. Does 



120 THE LINE IS BUSY 

not the Bang's courier ever visit you? When 
I was a lad there came one day a stray and 
homeless boy to the door of our home in 
southern Ohio and asked for a bit of bread. 
My mother must have felt that the request 
was a humble one, for she invited him in, 
gave him a warm and nourishing meal, in- 
quired about his home and his mother, gave 
him a better coat and a good book to read 
and some kind advice. While doing more 
than he had asked her to do she was un- 
consciously going the second mile. To her 
the wandering lad was the King's courier, 
and she remembered that the King had said, 
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the 
least of these, ye have done it unto me." 
The incident left with me an impression that 
has stayed with me ever since, namely, that 
the world needs something more than it asks 
and it pertains to Christian enterprise to 
meet the greater need. The world may ask 
for bread, but man cannot hve by bread 
alone. It may ask for a dollar, but the 
ability to earn a dollar would be a greater 
gift. Men are not merely to be rescued from 
starvation; they are to be inspired. They 
are not simply to be given a night's lodging; 



THE COURIER OF THE KING 121 

they are to be built up in manhood and the 
love of goodness. 

It is too late in the world's history to turn 
the wheels of progress back. It is too late 
in the world's history for any kind of re- 
ligion but the practical kind. "Ye are the 
salt of the earth." True enough, but an 
essay on "salt" read over a barrel of meat 
will not keep it from spoiling. If salt is to 
do any good, it must be rubbed in. For a 
similar reason the applied Christianity is the 
only kind that will attract attention and 
survive. This is simply a gospel that 
touches man as he is, society as it is, and the 
human heart as it is in all its need of the 
stimulus afforded by a great prospect. 
The time has come when we must have 
"second-mile" Christianity or none. The 
enchantment, therefore, of every gospel 
minister, as the flying courier of God, must 
be that he represents the King. As the 
Roman courier was heartened when he re- 
membered that behind him were Cgesar's 
armies and all the resources of the empire, 
so the messenger of the gospel has confi- 
dence in his heart and face because he oper- 
ates in the consciousness that he is doing the 



122 THE LINE IS BUSY 

King's work, and in so doing all the King's 
resources are pledged to his faithfulness. 

Some say, "O, the world is getting 
worse," but Jesus says, "AU power is given 
unto me: go ye." The church says, "We 
have not got the men of fire we used to 
have," but Jesus says: "I have not changed. 
I have the same power; go ye." And as I 
see in this modern time the couriers of the 
cross going every whither — over plain, 
mountain, and sea, some by railroad, some 
by vessel, some by trolley, some mounted 
and some on foot, but each one upbearing 
the sacred page — I am easily persuaded that 
it is the same old power which puts them 
"on the go" and generates in them a sancti- 
fied audacity to lay their hands upon men 
and claim them for Jesus Christ. 



XII 

THE WORSHIP OF WORK 

Work is one of the laws of life. It is not 
only a "doing" but a "being." It is a form 
of worship quite as acceptable unto God as 
the saying of prayers. It is perhaps just 
as much of a comphment to the Almighty 
as to call him by many endearing names. 
The individual who spends his years with 
nothing to do finds life a well-organized 
misery. Very much that has been said and 
written about the "wrongs of labor" has 
been unmindful of the truism that a "chance 
to work" in this world is the best that we 
can get. No class of people is so hard to 
evangelize as lazy people; people to whom 
a new truth is painful and the very thought 
of action is oppressive, people who seldom 
hear the gospel because of mental indolence 
and for the same reason seem to care for 
nothing but a "full supply of nonentity." 
However, the relation of work to the king- 
dom, and especially the relation of work to 
salvation, has often been misunderstood. 
123 



124 THE LINE IS BUSY 

Nothing should ever be permitted to ob- 
scure the splendid fact that salvation is a 
gift. You cannot claim it, cannot earn it, 
cannot acquire it, cannot purchase it on the 
market. It is just handed over to you by 
the Giver of every good and perfect gift and 
becomes a possession so real that the in- 
spired Word calls it "your own." And yet 
after salvation is your own, here comes the 
exhortation to "work out your own salva- 
tion." One does not work to get alive, but 
he works because he is alive. On bright 
days when one sees prophecies of spring- 
time, beholds the peeping grass and feels the 
breath of God in the delicious atmosphere, 
he says, "I feel like getting out and work- 
ing in the garden." But you feel that way 
because you are alive. A dead man doesn't 
care about working in the garden. Like- 
wise a sinner "dead in trespasses" cannot 
work himself into spiritual life. But it is 
just as plain that one may own a field, have 
the deed to it, and yet leave it alone. It will 
then become unproductive. The fact is that 
conversion is capital "to begin on" in the 
transcendent business of being a son of the 
living God. But it is an equal fact that sal- 



THE WORSHIP OF WORK 125 

vation is a gift capable of indefinite expan- 
sion. All gifts do not seem to be capable of 
that. One day you received a gift with 
which you were delighted. You showed it 
to your friends. You put it on and wore it, 
and it amounted to a great deal. But after 
a while another gift was received and the 
former one was neglected. It lost some of 
its luster, became tarnished, dented, and 
forgotten; and, finally, one day it fell down 
behind the trunk and you did not miss it 
enough to look for it. It had its biggest 
day when it was received, and from that 
day it gradually dwindled to its end. But 
hsten: the gift of God is an expansive 
gift. Use it and it will grow bigger. 
Wear it and it will become brighter. Apply 
it and it will become more valuable. O what 
a gift! If you have it, work it. 

Now, human nature cannot be said to be 
Uke a pan of good milk in which the cream 
always rises to the top. Both revelation and 
experience will bear us out in saying that 
the evil in a man is very hable to come to the 
top (or the front). Certainly, when good- 
ness does prevail, it is not through a poUcy 
of passivity but by conquest. If we could 



126 THE LINE IS BUSY 

listen at a real confessional, we would hear 
one say, "I am selfish; that is my infirmity." 
Another would say, "I have a temper and 
it always has its way." Another would say, 
"I have to take a dram occasionally, for I 
have always been used to it; that is my in- 
firmity." Another still would justify his 
profiteering or taking advantage because he 
has "to make a hving." But wiU someone 
tell us what the Christian principle is for, 
if it is not to be applied and expanded? 
What is salvation's function if it wiU not 
save from what we have always been "used 
to" ? If, as the Greek student says, you will 
"energize" your salvation, inconsistencies 
will disappear because no standing room 
will be left for them. An enterprising and 
growing city is always extending its boun- 
daries. Ileal estate dealers are always busy 
laying out subdivisions all aroimd the cor- 
poration that will be "near by" and yet "out- 
side," where residents will have all the bene- 
fits but no responsibiUty. But every now 
and then periodically the city council finds 
it to the advantage of the city to take in the 
subdivisions. A vote is secured and the 
thing is done. Now the significance of 



THE WORSHIP OF WORK 127 

"working out your salvation" is practically 
to keep on taking in the subdivisions of your 
life and character. Fill up the swamps and 
take them in. Weed out the brier patches 
and take them in; plant them with the 
flowers of grace and truth. Bring every 
talent you have into the corporation. Bring 
every mental aptitude, every possession, 
and every influence you may have with men 
into the corporation and let them be Chris- 
tianized. Work out your salvation — out 
and out until all the territory has been 
reached, until the remotest desert of your 
life becomes transformed by the civilization 
of grace and your own heart becomes a 
miniature of God's own beautiful city 
whose streets are gold, whose gates are pearl 
and the throne of Christ is in the midst. 

It will therefore be a great gain when 
every Christian is filled with the persuasion 
that God will hold him responsible for what 
he does with his conversion. If you neglect 
it, it will neglect you. If you keep it warm, 
it will keep you warm. If you energize it, it 
will improve. If you let it alone, it will let 
you alone. If you work it, it will increase. 
Thereby it will become more capable. 



128 THE LINE IS BUSY 

The more one knows of God the more he is 
capable of knowing. "To him that hath 
shall be given." 

There was a certain citizen on our street 
who started to build a house ; that is, he had 
the sand and the bricks and the timbers all 
brought and deposited on the lot; but, 
strange to say, he never went any farther. 
The neighbors were disappointed, for cer- 
tainly they had a right to expect that he 
would go on and build a house, finish it, and 
move in and live there. God expects every 
one of us to build a character that will be 
worthy of being located on the avenue of 
grace. He furnishes all the material, but 
the material of a temple is not a temple. He 
expects a man to take the material which 
he furnishes and work it. He furnishes 
plans, specifications, and a foundation. 
Then he says, "Work this thing out." 
Build a "sky-scraper" according to the blue 
prints in Second Peter: "Giving all dili- 
gence, add to your faith virtue; and to vir- 
tue knowledge; and to knowledge temper- 
ance; and to temperance patience; and 
to patience godliness; and to godhness 
brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kind- 



THE WORSHIP OF WORK 129 

ness charity" — one story after another, one 
accomplishment after another. 

There are some churches that seem to be 
organized on the principle that the kingdom 
of heaven is God's enterprise and that con- 
sequently he will do all the work. They 
have quite forgotten that the church is the 
body of Christ and that it is the function 
of the body to respond to the dictates of the 
head. If, therefore, the body sits down and 
does not respond to the dictates of the head, 
there will be no result. The churches which 
leave God to do all the work are the 
chm^hes whose work is never done. 

A beautiful English Lutheran church was 
being completed in our conmiunity. Its ap- 
pointments within were arranged for con- 
venience, for elegance, for beauty, and 
religious suggestion. One man was ham- 
mering, another was measuring, another 
sandpapering, another coloring. It was a 
pleasure to see how the workmen were all 
cooperating to construct a splendid piece of 
architecture. But one could not help think- 
ing of the architect who was back of all the 
beautiful unfolding. He designed and 
planned all that the workmen were doing. 



130 THE LINE IS BUSY 

When they wanted to know what to do next, 
they had to consult the architect. His 
thought was breathing through it all. The 
architect worked in the carpenters, and the 
carpenters worked his thoughts out. But 
is not the program of all Christian work 
similar to this, since "It is God who worketh 
in you, to will and to do of his good pleas- 
ure"? But as the architect's thought will 
not work itself out, so the thought or 
pleasure of God will not work itself out in 
men "whether they will or no." 

It would simphfy the matter very much 
if you could start a Christian life going as 
you might start a clock's pendulum a-swing- 
ing and say, "Now go on and tick." 

But, strange to say, the going on is not a 
thing that will do itself. All noble life has 
a mainspring. It is God working in you to 
will and to do of his good pleasure. But, 
alas ! our figure breaks down because we are 
dealing with life, not mechanism. 

There is such a thing as liberty of action 
in the personahty, and sometimes the main- 
spring has to wait a long time for the tick to 
follow and sometimes waits in vain. Per- 
haps some one who reads these lines has 



THE WORSHIP OF WORK 131 

been resisting a conviction of duty. He has 
been moved by the Spirit to witness for the 
Master in some place or way and has not 
done so. How long are you going to 
keep the mainspring waiting? 

Perhaps others are absolutely convinced 
of some cause they ought to assist or of some 
wrong they ought to resist. The impression 
may be from God, may plainly be his "will 
and pleasure," but how long are they going 
to keep the mainspring waiting? 

Do you not know that one cannot keep 
God's time unless he responds promptly to 
the mainspring? A traveler was in a hurry 
but stopped to set his watch by the watch of 
his friend. He then saw he had plenty of 
time. He missed his train. Why did he 
miss? Because his friend's watch was too 
slow. As great as was the inconvenience it 
was a small matter compared to the fact 
that travelers to eternity are setting their 
watches by us. They do not stop and ask 
but unconsciously take their bearings. It 
is possible that they will discover too late 
that they have been misinformed. Oh, wiU 
it not be a grand state of things when the 
world, at any time, even on a foggy morn- 



132 THE LINE IS BUSY 

ing, can look in the faces of the manhood of 
the church and the womanhood of the 
church and see what time it is by God's 
calendar? 

The two conspicuous departments of 
the Christian system have been called faith 
and works. They have no quarrel; but the 
Lord indicated a test by which you may 
know faith when you see it. You can tell a 
live man when you see him. You can also 
determine a dead man when you see him, but 
then a dead man is no longer a man. Like- 
wise a dead faith is not faith any more, and 
"faith without works is dead." Here is a 
hungry man who has a claim on your sym- 
pathy. You have the means of feeding him, 
but instead of feeding him you stand off 
and say, "I believe, I believe." No, you 
don't. 

Here is a big world to be operated in 
the interests of truth and purity and jus- 
tice. It means every disciple's thought and 
prayer, time, money, and strength in his 
measure; but if he evades all obligations 
and, standing off, says, "I believe, I be- 
lieve," he thereby demonstrates that he does 
not beheve, for the demonstration of faith 



THE WORSHIP OF WORK 133 

is fruitage. Here is a peculiar-looking seed. 
How is it possible to find out what kind of 
a seed it is? Plant it. As it grows up out 
of the ground one may look at the sprout 
and make a guess as to what it is, but cannot 
tell positively. It develops trunk, boughs, 
and branches, and leaves. These things 
were aU contained in the original seed held 
between a man's thimib and finger. Still he 
could not determine what variety of seed it 
was. But one year there was a single apple 
that escaped the insects. As it begins to 
ripen and blush under the yellow blazes of 
autumnal sunshine it proves to be a North- 
ern Spy. There was no telling what variety 
it was until it made an apple. And here is 
faith. It too is a seed. It is an insignifi- 
cant affair, but the whole Christian life with 
its beautiful possibihties is wrapped up in 
it; yet it can only be known to be genuine 
faith when it fruits into good works. We 
are not told that God will take a man's faith 
and put it under a microscope to learn if it 
is genuine faith, but will look at the fruitage 
of the life for demonstration. The basis 
of all judgment, he says, will be "Inasmuch 
as ye did it," and "Inasmuch as ye did it 



134 THE LINE IS BUSY 

not." If, therefore, the Ahnighty is shut 
up to telling by a man's works, his fruit- 
age, whether he is a Christian or not, it 
would not be expected that a mortal man 
could tell by any less graphic or convincing 
evidence. 



XIII 

WHEN THE MIND FALLS IN 
LOVE 

Have you not often been impressed with 
the intimacy between thought and action? 
All outside action is but the visible expres- 
sion of inside thinking. This is no less true 
of evil actions than it is of virtuous action. 
It has been said that the best way to kill a 
bill which has been introduced in Congress 
is to "kill it in committee." It is equally 
true that the only, as well as the best, way 
to kill a mischievous act is to kill it in the 
mind. There was one place and one moment 
when a bucket of water would have saved 
Chicago in 1871. But that opportunity 
passed and square mile after square mile of 
houses and milUons upon millions went 
up in smoke. And what is the difference 
between a good and a bad man but this? It 
does not consist in one having an evil 
thought and the other one not having it. 
Wicked thoughts come to life in the godliest 
of people, but the difference is this : the good 
135 



136 THE LINE IS BUSY 

man puts the extinguisher on the spark and 
the evil man allows it to kindle and burn on 
until life's beautiful prospects are burned 
up and hfe's great city of possibihties is but 
smoking and blackened ruins. A man by 
the name of Reed had the same opportunity 
to betray his country that Benedict Arnold 
had. The offer was made to both. The 
same thought was in the mind of both, but 
Reed quenched it while Arnold nursed it. 
Every bad thing wants a thought. That is 
all it asks at first. In giving his religious 
experience David says, "I thought on my 
ways and turned my feet unto thy testi- 
monies," but he never would have done the 
turning without thinking. Turning and 
thinking go together, but the thinking comes 
jirst. 

There is, therefore, an unmistakable inti- 
macy between thought and character. It 
is worth a great deal to have something 
worth thinking about, for whatever a man 
keeps his mind upon will give complexion 
to his soul, color to his philosophy, and 
tissue and blood to his life. Thus if a man 
keeps his mind on the low resort where men 
and women revel in sin, thinks over its filth 



MIND FALLS IN LOVE 137 

and fondles its mean stories, he will soon 
have no passions but the passions of a beast. 
But if his intellect be occupied with whatso- 
ever things are pure, true, lovely, and of 
good report, he will come to a development 
of being that can scarcely be told. If Chris- 
tianity were valuable for nothing else, it is 
worth espousing for the exalted themes of 
thought it furnishes the believer, and 
whether we believe it or not it may be abso- 
lutely demonstrated that our thinking is 
immortalizing itself in our character, as a 
dyer of fabrics becomes strained with his 
own dye-stuffs. 

What a world of significance there is in 
the commandment "Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God with all thy mindf't There 
are very many people who are convinced 
that there is a God, but who wish there were 
no God. They cannot but recognize that 
the fact of God is the supreme fact of the 
universe, but they are sorry it is so. They 
do not love that beUef . They do not like to 
think about God. If they could be con- 
vinced that God is a mere vagary, they 
would have a celebration. They would ring 
bells and blow whistles and beat drums and 



138 THE LINE IS BUSY 

kindle bonfires on every hilltop, because 
then they could do wrong with impunity, 
and without being troubled about any future 
accounting. But, oh, the Christian not only 
believes that God is, but is glad that he is. 
He is persuaded that God is all powerful 
and is glad that he is. He is fond of think- 
ing about him. God is the sunshine of his 
life. When the mind is in love with God it 
has the greatest possible encouragement to 
gain knowledge and discover truth. What 
incentive would one have to think and 
study and search for knowledge if he be- 
lieved that all he is will return to dust? 
That would be like tying dumbbells to a 
bird's wing, and would make it hard work 
for faculties to fly. A depressing weight 
would hang heavy upon our mental wings. 
"Loving with the mind is the best insur- 
ance of achievement. The folks who do 
things are the folks who love what they do. 
There was once a great lover of animals; 
he found out the habits of animals. There 
was once a great lover of flowers ; he found 
out the secret of the flowers. There was 
once a great lover of butterflies ; he has told 
us all about the butterflies. There was once 



MIND FALLS IN LOVE 139 

a great lover of birds ; he found out the se- 
crets of the birds and constructed the 
science of ornithology. Likewise the mind 
that is in love with God will learn the se- 
crets of the Lord and will come to know him 
best. Such a one will not be content to 
know about him." Christianity always has 
been a religion of knowing. 

In John's first Epistle he says that "We 
do know that we know him," and in one 
form of expression or another he says fifty- 
one times in one Epistle that men may know 
God. 

Now, it is just as true of Christianity 
as of any other science, that every time you 
apply it you prove the truth of it. Astron- 
omy as a science has to do with the move- 
ments of the heavenly bodies. The naviga- 
tor apphes astronomy in a practical way 
and by so doing is able to steer his vessel 
from shore to shore. Is it not evident that 
when the ship captain out on the midnight 
deep unfolds his chart and looks up into the 
star-clad sky and is enabled to tell where his 
ship is in all the watery waste, is it not evi- 
dent that every time he takes an observa- 
tion like that he proves that astronomy is 



140 THE LINE IS BUSY 

true? And as Christianity is the science of 
knowing God, is it not true that every time 
this knowledge is applied and worked out 
in daily life you have a fresh proof of the 
truth of the science? Every time a be- 
liever's faith in Christ enables him to con- 
quer he proves that his faith is true. Every 
time a man goes down on his knees in 
prayer, and after that mysterious experi- 
ence, rises up to hfe's task with a new light 
in his face and a new warmth in his bosom 
and a new strength in his arm, he proves the 
truth of prayer. Our religion is no excep- 
tion to the rule that you may prove a truth 
by applying it. "He that doeth his will 
shall know." 

If, then, in any real sense it is art life 
to know Raphael, if it is musical life to 
know Beethoven, if it is classical life to 
know Homer, if it is law life to know Black- 
stone, in a much more eminent sense it is 
true that "This is life eternal, to know thee, 
the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom 
thou hast sent." Referring again to the 
commandment "Thou shalt love the Lord 
thy God with all thy mind," the little word 
"all" will not permit us to forget the neces- 



MIND FALLS IN LOVE 141 

sity of concentration in the Christian life. 
Don't you understand that it takes the whole 
man to be a Christian? Concentration is 
power, always has been power, always will 
be power. With how many is religion only a 
matter of paint, a decoration, a flower in the 
buttonhole, something put on to make things 
look right rather than being the one reason 
why they live and the motive power of all! 
"What think ye of Christ?" is not an idle 
question in spiritual pedagogics, for he who 
thinks indifferently about Christ will also 
think indifferently about sin. 

It has always been noticed that whoever 
does not consider Jesus a great Redeemer 
does not consider moral evil a very great 
evil. 

The oppositions to exalted living are so 
many and so tremendous that nothing less 
than the consecration and the enthusiasm 
of the mind's love can blow them aside. 
During the Spanish- American War the 
Spanish Admiral explained his defeat by 
saying that his fleet was outclassed by the 
enemy. But let me say to any and every 
one who goes out in the world to meet the 
oppositions to a Christian life with a divided 



142 THE LINE IS BUSY 

mind : You will be simply outclassed. You 
will be driven ashore and stranded and com- 
pelled to pull down your flag. This fight 
that is going on against the "world, the flesh, 
and the devil" will require all your mind, as 
well as aU your soul and strength. The 
love of the mind! Oh, no other one thing 
has so much to do in deciding how much of 
a Christian one will be. It is one thing to 
be convinced of a truth; it is quite another 
thing to love that truth and accept it. You 
might admit the argument for Christianity 
without admitting Christ. He will not 
reach any farther into your life's program 
than you make room for him. The shoe- 
maker does not expect or try to drive the 
peg into the sole of the shoe without 
first making room for it with his awl. We 
must make room for the gospel. The 
preacher can never drive it in. We let it 
in, and just how much the mind loves that 
gospel will determine how large a place we 
make for it and how much it will do for us. 
A dear friend of mine living in the coim- 
try took me out one day to look at a certain 
field in which he had great confidence. He 
declared that he would rather part with all 



MIND FALLS IN LOVE 143 

the rest of the farm than part with that one 
field. It had such fertility that in all the 
years he had owned it, it had never failed to 
surpass his expectations. But now let me 
find an earnest student of truth whose mind 
loves to think of God, loves to discover him, 
whether in human dispositions or wayside 
blossoms, and I will show you a rich soil 
where you can plant the gospel and always 
coxmt on a grand result. A splendid nobil- 
ity of character is the unfailing product 
when a loving mind and gospel seed meet. 
What is called happiness must always 
flow out of such a mind, for we have to re- 
member that happiness does not flow into a 
man but flows out of him. When the Mas- 
ter said, "Blessed are the pure in heart," he 
did not refer to the muscular organ that 
pumps blood into the arteries. The only 
value of a figure of speech is the kernel in- 
side of it. The idea inside of the Master's 
beatitude is. Blessed are the pure in mind. 
Blessed are the pure in conscience. Blessed 
are the pure in motive. Blessed are the pure 
in thought Hfe and affectional life. Let us 
accept it, therefore, as one of the necessities 
of clear thought as well as a certainty of 



144 THE LINE IS BUSY 

God's Word that one's happiness cannot be 
separated from what he is. Milton makes 
his devil to say, "Wherever I fly is hell, my- 
self am hell," and someone has suggested 
with equally good philosophy that he might 
have made his angel to sing, "Wherever I 
fly is heaven, myself is heaven," for not even 
golden streets and blooming gardens and 
ambrosial fruits could constitute a sufficient 
substitute for character in building a para- 
dise. 



XIV 

"TAKE THE LONG BELT" 

In a certain city of size and importance, 
the street-car system is arranged in ''belt 
lines." When first visiting this city and 
wishing to do some sight-seeing, "Informa- 
tion" asked: "How much do you want to 
see? If you take the Short Belt, you will 
see some portions of interest, but you will 
see very much more if you take the Long 
Belt." One of the children spoke up and 
said she had to write a paper for "Rhetori- 
cals" on "City Life," whereupon "Informa- 
tion" advised, "By all means take the 'Long 
Belt.' " One of the party said, "We can 
take the 'Short Belt' and get back in time 
for dinner," but to this it was responded, 
"We can get dinner any day, but to-day we 
have come to see the city." And so for these 
and many other reasons we took "The Long 
Beit." Passing strange that we should 
years afterward go to this same city to live, 
and that the place of our residence was 
located on the most remote spot of this car 
145 



146 THE LINE IS BUSY 

line, and that during our stay there, when- 
ever we wanted to go anywhere, or when we 
wanted to go home, we had to take the 
"Long Belt." 

This wayside experience has become a 
parable of hfe and suggests an inquiry into 
the philosophy of the Christian movement 
in the world. An old adage declares, "The 
world was not made in a day," and many 
times it has been an offset to discourage- 
ment, in promoting moral reforms and 
making the world better. 

To take a populous people, used to a cer- 
tain habit of thinking and living, and so 
change this people that its personalities be- 
come established in another habit of think- 
ing and living, is not a work that can be 
finished before sundown; but it is a work 
that needs to be begun instantly, followed 
vigorously, and kept up persistently. You 
must "take the Long Belt." 

Time is an essential factor in accomplish- 
ing everything worth while. We are living 
in an age of very rapid movement. It is 
possible now to do some things in days 
which formerly required years for their 
doing. Sky-scrapers are erected in a few 



"TAKE THE LONG BELT" 147 

months, oceans are crossed quickly, and the 
country is traversed by the sleeper in the 
night, so that the traveler may arrive in the 
metropolis for business hours the next 
morning. Everywhere there is speed. Per- 
haps the power to work miracles in the 
transportation and mechanical world has 
begotten a feverish impatience with slow 
methods in other departments of life. Why 
may we not have equal swiftness in mental 
culture? There are frequent advertise- 
ments in the newspapers offering remark- 
able "short cuts" to knowledge, skill, and 
accomphshments. One notice advertises 
"The Art of Music Taught in Ten Les- 
sons." Another reads, "Elocution Made 
Easy." Still another assures the reader 
that he may learn to "write and speak 
French or Italian in ten weeks." Even 
lawyers may be turned out in a few months 
by the secret process of a correspondence 
school, while favors without number, for- 
merly requiring a tedious process, are now 
done for you "while you wait." The age has 
become furiously impatient with delay and 
with slow methods. Boys want to leave 
school even before the eighth grade and 



148 THE LINE IS BUSY 

clamor for permission, and then afterward 
will say, as a noted business man said in 
mature life, "I would give ten thousand dol- 
lars if my father had not listened to me and 
permitted me to quit school when I did." 

There is a picture in my mind, imprinted 
there in my boyhood days. It is the picture 
of my father cutting the oats with the cus- 
tomary "cradle" of those days. Every once 
in a while he would stop and whet the 
scythe. It seemed to me he did this alto- 
gether too frequently, and I presumptu- 
ously suggested to him that he would go 
faster if he did not "whet" so much. 

"No," he replied, "that is the surest way 
to get through. As the edge is sharper it 
will cut more oats." It is exactly this way 
in the work which the mind has to do. The 
whetting of the mind which the schools will 
do is not so much lost time but it is time 
gained. The boy who fails in the jimior 
year invites this failure by a lack of prepara- 
tion in the elementary courses. Likewise 
the surveys of successful men of to-day 
make conspicuous the fact that the educated 
man, the trained man, the prepared man 
wins in the contests of life. Wherever we 



"TAKE THE LONG BELT" 149 

have a chance to give any advice, therefore, 
it will be this: "Take the Long Belt." 

Furthermore, the Bible is a witness to the 
fact that Christianity as a work in character 
and in society is cumulative. 

"They go from evil to evil," says the 
prophet. "They go from strength to 
strength," says the psalmist. "We all are 
changed from glory to glory as by the 
Spirit of the Lord," says Paul. To go 
from "evil to evil" is supposed to be the 
most natural and most common kind of 
progress. Let us hope it is not the case with 
us. We lament the contagiousness of evil, 
forgetting that the life of God, once im- 
planted, becomes a leaven of a mightier 
power, will accumulate power, and may 
become as natural as evil ever was. 

There is such a thing as momentum of 
purpose and habit. When we were boys at 
school the envied boy of the crowd was the 
one who could jump the farthest. A stick 
was put down or a mark was made in the 
ground where the jump was to begin, but 
the boy who made the record did not stand 
on that mark, but went far back of it, per- 
haps two hundred feet, and then ran with all 



150 THE LINE IS BUSY 

his might up to the mark. The momentum 
thus acquired carried him through the air 
much farther than he could have jumped 
without the accumulated momentum stored 
up by the long run. 

We are glad to beheve that, beginning in 
youth to run the Christian race, one may be 
so committed to a righteous purpose that he 
acquires a momentum irresistible, so that 
when he meets temptation he goes right 
through it; when solicitations to evil hail 
him he is going too fast to stop. A momen- 
tum of character will carry him unharmed 
through many snares of life. We can lay 
our hand on many an individual for whom it 
is harder to do wrong than it is to do right. 
If he should be thrown from the track of a 
righteous purpose, it would not be unhke a 
planet in the firmament flying from its 
orbit. There are three fascinating romances 
with which we are famihar. Consider the 
living germ. It will sprout, bud, blossom, 
exhale fragrance, and ripen into fruitage. 
This is the romance of nature. Consider 
the baby in its cradle. It will smile, then 
will walk, then will articulate, and soon will 
imitate. This is the romance of the home. 



"TAKE THE LONG BELT" 151 

Consider also the Christian developing, 
going from "strength to strength," "tribu- 
lation working patience, patience experi- 
ence, and experience hope." This is the 
romance of the kingdom of God. Every bit 
of knowledge gained makes easier the gain- 
ing of other bits of knowledge. It is won- 
derful that one can learn an alphabet; but 
it would be still stranger if, having learned 
an alphabet, one did not go on and learn 
others. It is said that every new truth 
learned is an alphabet to some higher truth. 
Everything done for Christ's sake brings to 
view a dozen other things which might be 
done. Opportunities multiply as the door 
to one of them is opened. To know God is 
our opportunity, but it cannot be done in 
the twinkle of an eye. It must be allowed 
to grow on you. I remember the first time 
I ever saw Niagara, I did not think it was 
much. Frankly, I was disappointed in 
Niagara at first sight. But I walked 
around and listened and it began to grow 
on me. I saw it from the American side, 
then from the Canadian side; saw it from 
above where I stood and looked down 
the awful plunge; saw it from below 



152 THE LINE IS BUSY 

where, clad in waterproof, I ventured 
up into the mist. I saw it from the rapids, 
and then the whirlpool, until finally I was 
overwhelmed with its tremendousness, so 
that for two days afterward, when I was 
hundreds of miles away, the roar of the 
cataract was still in my ears. Likewise a 
knowledge of God is cimaulative. He 
must grow on you. You must linger in his 
presence. "They that wait on the Lord 
shall renew their strength." Having 
learned of God from the standpoint of 
prosperity, you have only begun. You still 
must learn of him from the standpoint of 
adversity. Will you presume to grasp in a 
moment what the angels have never yet 
been able to comprehend? This is no little 
affair. You must take the "Long Belt." It 
is an education and a fortune to know God 
at all, but to know him unto perfection is 
the industry of eternity. 

I confess to have learned a great lesson 
from Dr. Lyman Abbott concerning Life. 
Substantially it is this: There is an outer 
life which we observe. There is an inner 
hf e of which we are conscious. There is also 
an innermost life which lies back of con- 



"TAKE THE LONG BELT" 153 

sciousness. For example, one may read the 
notes of a musical selection and sing the 
same. Then he may learn this selection so 
well that he may sing it without the notes, 
but yet he follows the notes in his imagina- 
tion. He may, however, become so familiar 
with this musical composition that he can 
sing it without the notes and without imag- 
ining them. He sings then as the bird sings. 
The bird does not sing from memory, but 
simply sings what is in him. It is an ex- 
pression of subconscious life. Now, there 
are certain tendencies which may and do 
become strong in age. These remain after 
memory and other mental powers have 
failed. My mother's lifelong passion was 
anxiety for her children. In old age, when 
she had forgotten everything else, this rul- 
ing passion was still strong. If it depended 
upon memory, it would have been forgotten 
as everything else was forgotten. But it 
was written down in her subconsciousness. 
It is not the objective of scholarship to tell 
the shelf and the book and the page where 
everything can be found. Dr. Abbott in 
this connection tells of a New York judge 
of his acquaintance who seldom in his de- 



154 THE LINE IS BUSY 

cisions cites an authority by volume and 
page. The principles of the law are so 
wrought into his being that he decides the 
greatest questions which are submitted to 
him according to principles which have be- 
come a part of his nature. It is grandly 
possible for Christianity in human nature 
to amount to that much. The highest kind 
of Christian experience, therefore, is when 
the subconsciousness has been so shaped and 
vitaHzed by the Lord Jesus and his Holy 
Spirit that the tendency to righteousness is 
there, and the man gravitates toward right- 
eousness even when surprised by a situation. 
It is the case, perhaps, with most of us 
that when we do right we first have to stop 
and think about it. But no man is yet what 
he ought to be until he does right without 
thinking about it. He does it because that 
tendency is written down in his subcon- 
sciousness, is supreme, is quickest to assert 
itself, and is the first impulse to leap forth 
when circumstances have opened the door. 
But to have Christianity to amount to that 
much in your personahty is not the work of 
a moment or a day. Again, it is evident, you 
must take the "Long Belt." 



"TAKE THE LONG BELT" 155 

When the world is going so fast and 
quicker methods are found for doing many- 
things, there are some, perhaps many, who, 
like the editor of a famous magazine, think 
that preachers are slow and churches are 
slow and missionaries are slow and that they 
ought to save the world quickly. Steam 
power has had some very swift develop- 
ments, but does it bring on the reign of 
goodness any faster? Electricity is mighty 
smart and can get there quickly, but does it 
have a quickening effect on piety and con- 
secration to the spiritual rescue of the race? 
Sometimes I wish things were so arranged 
that all we would need to do to enlighten 
the world would be to press a button, or that 
by moving an iron lever we could throw 
religious enthusiasm into high gear. 

The gospel is proclaimed on one corner, 
but wickedness holds sway on a dozen other 
corners, and the days and years are passing. 
It is suggested that perhaps the standard is 
too high; that the cross ought to be taken 
out of religion and some other disagreeable 
things eliminated to make it more to the lik- 
ing of the average taste. All this is nothing 
new, Moses had discouragement, but kept 



156 THE LINE IS BUSY 

on. Elijah had it, and Daniel had it, but 
they kept on, and all down the history of 
goodness there have been periods when men 
threw up their hands and said, "The cause 
is gone"; but it isn't gone yet. 

All the discouragement is on the human 
side, and that side alone, with eternity at its 
disposal, could never make the human 
spirit triumph. On the divine side there is 
no failure, and it is said, "He shall not fail 
nor be discouraged." Some things are more 
important to God than time. He cares 
more to have things done well than to have 
them done quickly. Everything would in- 
dicate that he favors the program of taking 
the "Long Belt," for to him one day is as a 
thousand years and a thousand years as one 
day. He created the earth, but took plenty 
of time. He made the Bible, but took two 
thousand years to do it. Is it not just as 
much inspired as if he had done it all some 
morning before breakfast? He promised a 
Messiah, but waited four thousand years 
before he sent him. He waited until men 
had tried all their schemes — waited until 
Egypt had tried her learning, waited until 
Greece had tried her art, waited until Rome 



"TAKE THE LONG BELT" 157 

had tried her power, and when all had dem- 
onstrated their inability to make the human 
spirit triimfiph, the Promised One came, and 
he came in the fullness of time, the ripeness 
of events. 

"He that believeth shall not make haste" 
is the inspired word of a prophet, which 
means, in other words, that impatience is a 
symptom of unbelief. The times just now 
are "panicky" because men have lost faith. 
Discontent and fretfulness appear in the 
work of the Kingdom because the workers 
lose faith in the outcome. Many are im- 
patient with inconspicuous duties, forget- 
ting that the life of blessing is not a matter 
of great parts, many applauding spectators 
and Jupiter orbits, but a matter of princi- 
ples and "faithfulness to that which is 
least." No great sphere is needed for the 
expression of greatness. A modest, "wee 
daisy" was opportunity sufficient for a 
Robert Burns to manifest great genius. A 
"single string on a wooden shoe" was 
enough for a Paganini, and a few inches of 
canvas were sufficient for a Raphael, for the 
expression of great talent; and a dim cor- 
ner, a humble task, and a constant faith. 



158 THE LINE IS BUSY 

with only God and the angels as spectators, 
are sufficient to develop and reveal real 
greatness of soul. 

A great believer can afford to meet de- 
feat now and then. He can stand it, for he 
knows it is too late in the world's history to 
turn the wheels of the Kingdom back. A 
great behever can afford to be patient, for 
he lives in the persuasion that "all things 
are working together for good" and to 
actualize that "far-off divine event to which 
the whole creation moves." He is on the 
"Long Belt." 



XV 

SELF-STARTERS 

One day I stood on the pavement by the 
curb and talked with a friend who was 
seated in his new automobile. And when 
our conversation was finished and I saw 
that he wanted to be off, I said to him, "Do 
not bother getting out; I will crank your 
machine for you." 

"Oh, no," he answered, "it is a self- 
starter." 

It was the first I had seen, and I looked 
at it with admiration and said, "I wish it 
belonged to my church ; I have need of self- 
starters." Since then I have had the feeling 
that if I ever bought a motor machine I 
would get the starter first. It is an accom- 
plishment superb in mechanics to own an 
automobile that is a self-starter ; but to have 
a church of a thousand members and all of 
them self-starters would be a far greater 
thing under the sun. For self-starters in 
doing good and in the King's service there 
159 



160 THE LINE IS BUSY 

is a wide, wide field of iavitation where the 
occupants are not crowded. 

What a Sunday school that would be 
where all the teachers and officers were self- 
starters! What a congregation that would 
be where the pastor and visitiag committee 
would not need to go around and crank 
folks up in order to get them started ! What 
a grand prayer meeting we would have 
every week if every member of the church 
had a self-generated desire to come. On 
a certain Sunday night the weather was 
rainy and the people stayed home from 
church. Why? The weather was bad. On 
Monday the weather was stiU worse, but 
everybody went to business. On Tuesday 
night there was a big social function ap- 
pointed, but, of course, the weather was too 
bad, as the rain continued. Did the people 
remain indoors? Hardly. The men tele- 
phoned for taxis and took their wives to the 
social event. The rain continued the next 
day and the next night, which was prayer 
meeting night, but did the members of the 
church call the taxis to take their families 
to prayer meeting? Not exactly. Why 
not? They will agree that the prayer meet- 



SELF-STARTERS 161 

ing has to do with the most important mat- 
ter. If on some prayer meeting night, when 
a rain storm suddenly came up, the people 
of the world should call all the garages for 
taxis to come and take them to some big 
social event, and should learn to their dis- 
may that all the taxis in town were engaged 
to take church members to prayer meeting, 
it would do more good than a month of 
preaching. An event like that would make 
more people think than ten years of beauti- 
ful weather on prayer meeting night. It 
would be an evangel. It would show that 
there were some Christian people in town 
whose self-starters were in good working 
order. What a delight a self -starting con- 
stituency would be to the Finance Com- 
mittee! Instead of cranking up the "sup- 
porters" of the chiu-ch with an exhortation, 
and then with a begging letter, and again 
with a "second notice," and then again with 
"an every-member canvass," and finally 
cranking them all over again with an oyster 
supper, every member would be a self- 
starter, only waiting for a chance to give 
until benevolence would become an ex- 
hilaration. 



162 THE LINE IS BUSY 

Now, to make a little closer approach to 
sobriety and to make a wider observation 
of the working of this principle, one of the 
most impressive things in history is the way 
that Christianity has started things going, 
started nations on the way to power and in- 
fluence, and started men on a better career. 
In whatever land this wonderful starter has 
been installed it has started industry itself 
upon a rapid speed of development. What 
the sunbeams of May have been to the wait- 
ing vegetation, Christianity has been to the 
sleeping energies of the human race. It has 
thrown the shuttles that have weaved the 
marvels of the world. On a train one sum- 
mer day, going through the fertile Sacra- 
mento valley, I conversed with a returned 
missionary. He had just described to me 
how in the idolatrous country from which 
he came the farmers would go out into their 
fields with a sickle and reap their grain a 
handful at a time. Just then we looked out 
of the car window and saw the reapers at 
work in the wheat fields of the Sacramento 
valley. Machines drawn by sixteen horses 
were cutting the wheat and threshing it and 
sacking the grain all at the same time ! 



SELF-STARTERS 163 

What was that? Industry living, grow- 
ing, advancing. But that was only an inci- 
dent. Put it alongside the fact that to-day, 
at this writing, America is bridging the 
Atlantic to send food to starving Russia 
and we have a practical suggestion of what 
Christianity means to industry. Moreover, 
was it ever known in history that a pagan 
idolatrous nation organized relief expedi- 
tions to save from starvation a distant and 
uncongenial people? 

A "self-starter"? That's what the gospel 
hope is and that is the way it acts when it is 
given its place in anyone's life. It was uni- 
formly true when Jesus was on the earth 
that in his presence people felt themselves 
new. It had that effect upon Zacchseus. 
He had been a rascal so long that he had 
given up the idea of being any better than 
his reputation called for. But when he 
looked into the face of Jesus he was stirred 
with the hope that goodness was possible to 
him. And the woman who touched the hem 
of his garment had first looked into his face 
and had her expectation aroused. How 
much the world needs to look into the face 
of the great Nazarene and get a new out- 



164 THE LINE IS BUSY 

look for itself! The face of the heathen is 
dull. The fatahstic pagan is lacking the 
pull of a great prospect. I have visited the 
homes of heathenism and noted their lack 
of a great impulse. Then the good mission- 
ary said, "Come with me," and he took me 
to visit some of his native Christian homes. 
As soon as the door was opened I beheld the 
new hfe that was mirrored in the faces of 
the Christian family. 

Human character under divine quicken- 
ing has developed in surprising quarters. 
The old Roman slave, the ancient Briton 
and Scandinavian were developed into 
"beautiful types of service." No one ever 
knew what was in a violin until a Paganini 
got a hold of it. No one knew what was in 
human nature until Jesus got a hold of it. 
We are told that in southern Africa to-day 
Christ is bringing out of men what they 
never dreamed was in them. It is fair to 
ask that if all the prospects which Jesus has 
put into Life were subtracted, what would 
be left worth having? Is there any other 
system that can offer a hope worth while? 
Mr. Huxley, who was perhaps the most re- 
liable exponent of evolution, said in so 



SELF-STARTERS 165 

many words, "Evolution encourages no 
millennial prospects." But we defy any one 
to candidly read the New Testament and 
not have millennial prospects awakened. 
"Beloved, now are we the sons of God, but 
it doth not yet appear what we shall be." 
What can compare with this as a starter of 
life on a higher plane? What can equal it 
in making the thought life of the world and 
the soul life of the world to sparkle and with 
deeper meanings run? 

Have you not been forcibly impressed 
with the vitalizing effect of Christian love? 
Another name for the same thing is "The 
Hohness of Helpfulness." Mr. Ruskin in 
one of his books says that the most expres- 
sive name of God is the "Helpful One," and 
this name in our Saxon means the "Holy 
One." The "Hohness of Helpfuhiess," 
therefore, is a high-grade mainspring of the 
Christian life; or, continuing our original 
metaphor, it is a most efficient "self-starter" 
for the kind of a hfe that is applauded by 
men and angels. This starter, however, 
may be easily "short-circuited." It is most 
effectually hindered by selfishness. I was 
on the train one day with a lot of city folks 



166 THE LINE IS BUSY 

who were going out to a Chautauqua resort 
to hear a distinguished lecturer. After the 
entertainment was over, the train backed up 
to the platform for the return journey. 
Such a scramble for seats! Everybody 
wanted to get the best seats. Men ran over 
women and children in their determination 
to get the best seats. One man reversed a 
back and taking possession of two seats, 
fenced off his claim with an umbrella. A 
lady of considerable size and fussiness "set" 
her basket down in one seat and "set" her- 
self down in another seat, and what com- 
fort she and the others had in watching the 
late comers go through the cars looking in 
vain for a seat! I happened to know that 
the most of these people were respectable 
church people, but in a moment of forget- 
fulness they let selfishness have the right of 
way and made a graphic showing of how far 
away they were from the disposition of Him 
who pleased not himself. 

When Phillips Brooks was once starting 
for Europe one of his friends remarked that 
if he brought to America any new religion 
he would have to pay the duty on it. In 
reply he said, "No, any religion popular 



SELF-STARTERS 167 

enough to import to this country would have 
no duties attached" The remark was 
more than a pleasantry, and was a keen ref- 
erence to those who regard the whole outfit of 
the church as especially for their own com- 
fort and in woeful disregard of the crowd 
outside. Hamilton Fish once asked a noted 
judge for a contribution to help build a 
monument to Washington. The judge re- 
fused, but said he had a "profound respect 
for Washington and always carried him in 
his heart." 

Mr. Fish replied, "If you carry him in 
your heart, he is in a mighty tight place." 

These types of kingdom "promoters" 
would be a poor dependence, if they were 
all. Salvation of the world in this genera- 
tion or any other generation depends on the 
discovery that Christianity is a religion 
which "won't keep." The thing to do is to 
spend it, use it, give it away — indeed, the 
only way you can keep it is to give it away. 
Love becomes vitalizing and quickening 
only when it becomes concrete in the "holi- 
ness of helpfulness." Is the church a light? 
Then it must flash its beams across the dark 
wave. Is the church a witness? Then it 



168 THE LINE IS BUSY 

must tell what it knows. Is the church a 
lifeboat? Then it must pull for the wreck. 
The love that is real will not fail to ''starf^ 
something. It is not a caress, but is life- 
giving. I think it takes a mighty love to 
serve God in some places. We think it hard 
to serve God in our community or in our 
city. What would you think if you were in 
a country where everybody worshiped 
images, a nominal Christian country, where, 
for example, in time of drought the people 
prayed to the image of the Virgin Mary for 
rain; and if the rain did not come, they 
would take the image of the Virgin down 
and give her a whipping because she is not 
attending to her job? There is such a 
country. And if after this she does not 
bring rain they put her down in a well to 
punish her and keep her there until it rains. 
Then they bring the image up again and 
put it on a pedestal and have a great festival 
of worship, smiting their breasts and crying, 
"Hail, Mary, mother of God!" 

We think we have a hard time promoting 
a spiritual rehgion in our church, but little 
conceive of the damper which an atmosphere 
of image worship creates. Certainly, the 



SELF-STARTERS 169 

missionary must have a "self-starter'' in 
perfect condition, and of remarkable power, 
for it sets him going whither other folks do 
not want to go and where it seems most dis- 
tasteful to stay. 

When a lad in the primary department 
I could not understand why my oldest 
brother wanted so much to go to India and 
leave "us." There was frequently a pack- 
age arriving at our house from his strange 
mission field. It contained Indian trinkets, 
funny little shoes, and jewelry with a god 
or two. His letters and boxes from the 
banks of the Ganges constituted my first 
lessons in missions. Many years later, 
when he was back home and I was older and 
studying to be a preacher, I said to him, 
"Brother, tell me in ten words the supreme 
reason for taking the gospel to heathen 
people." His answer was : "As you multiply 
their light you increase their chances." Since 
then our government has recognized light 
as an element of safety. It sent an army 
of school teachers to the Philippines to 
make the inhabitants safe. When we were 
boys the jewelry stores put great iron shut- 
ters over the windows of their establish- 



170 THE LINE IS BUSY 

merits as night came on. With great iron 
bolts that were rmi through and fastened on 
the inside the shutters were made secure. 
That was their idea of making things safe. 
Now it is different. If you walk along by 
those same jewelry stores at night at the 
present time, you will see no iron shutters, 
but you will see the store brilhantly illumi- 
nated from one end to the other. That is 
the latest idea of safety. There was once a 
congressman — and many hke him — who 
thought, perhaps honestly, that the heathen 
would be safer if kept in ignorance and in 
the dark ; that they would be less likely to be 
lost if they did not know any better; but 
Christ's plan is illumination. Turn on one 
jet of truth after another. So valuable are 
these jewels of humanity that he is asking 
you and me to help multiply their chances. 



XVI 

THE NEW UNIVERSE AND ITS 
CHAMPION 

Thomas Caelyle once said, ''Six thou- 
sand years of effort and strife are behind 
us." But may we not truly say, "A uni- 
verse is behind us and a universe is before 
us"? We are living upon the past and for 
the future. Our every life is the case of the 
eager landowner who built his house on the 
line between the farm which was his and the 
farm he was hoping some time to possess. 
The place of our residence is "on the hne" 
between the well known and the unknown, 
"on the line" between the Egypt of what 
we are and the Canaan of what we ought to 
be; "on the line" between the commonplace 
Real and the enchanted Ideal, "on the line" 
between the Universe Old and the Universe 
New. 

Every realm has its champion. Liberty 

suggests Washington. Massacre suggests 

Nero. Philosophy suggests Plato and 

theology suggests Paul. But there is an 

171 



172 THE LINE IS BUSY 

empire wider than these according to sur- 
veys up to date. It is the Universe of the 
New; and when I ask to learn the champion 
of this undiscovered country the unmistak- 
able reply comes from Revelation: "And he 
that sat upon the throne said, "Behold, I 
make all things new." 

As the champion of this realm of the 
New, Jesus is the Renewer of the human 
spirit. Has he not offered to give rest to 
the burdened and purity to the sinful? Has 
he not advertised as the heart renovator and 
said, "Here come with your withered souls 
and I will make them as good as new"? 
When a cyclone sweeps across the coimtry 
we may follow in its track and behold pros- 
trate forests, fallen towers, and ruined 
homes strewn all along the way. What 
shall we say when Jesus has passed the 
breath of his spirit over a human soul? 
Witness Saint Paul's answer when he de- 
clares, "Behold, old things have passed 
away and all things have become new." 
What is this I see? New landscapes of 
Hope and Prospect. What is this? Anew 
reason why a man lives and why he ought 
to live well. What is this? A grander 



THE NEW UNIVERSE 173 

meaning blushing in the dawn, written on 
the sky, speaking from the stars, "A livelier 
emerald twinkles in the grass, a deeper sap- 
phire melts into the sea." 

A lamp peddler once strolled along the 
streets of an ancient city crying: "Who will 
exchange old lamps for new ones? Who 
will exchange old lamps for new ones?" 
And the people flocked out from their 
dwelling houses, bringing their broken and 
tarnished wares to make a speculation. I 
am only a humble peddler of the gospel of 
Jesus Christ, but I tell you of a splendid 
bargain, for by him I am authorized to cry, 
"Who will exchange old hearts for new 
ones?" "I will take away that stony heart 
and give you a heart of flesh." Who will 
exchange old ideas for new ones? old in- 
clinations for new ones? old pleasures for 
new ones? Who will exchange the lamp of 
ever-extinguishing death for the lamp of 
ever-brightening life. Who will exchange? 
Wonderful ! overmastering ! Stupendous 
speculation ! 

As the champion of this realm of the 
New, Jesus has made us beheve that there 
will be many surprises and disclosures at the 



174 THE LINE IS BUSY 

final judgment. No scheme of philosophy 
is more intensely studied in this world than 
the "philosophy of clothes." The author of 
Sartor Besartus discussed it. And Pro- 
fessor Teufelsdroch, whom he makes to 
speak forth that strange mass of words, at 
least makes us understand the fact that 
underneath society there are mysterious 
events continually happening which are 
not made known to the unsuspecting citi- 
zen. There is much crookedness behind 
screens and aprons, which on the pubhc 
street seems straight enough. What a man 
seems to be and do is not always a suffi- 
cient index of what is buttoned up under his 
coat. But garments do fade and wax old 
and wear out and so will every concealment 
of human thought and action. Life's mas- 
querade will go on all night. We will talk 
with people we do not know, shake hands 
with villains under gloves, and look upon 
supposed "kings and queens." But when 
the midnight bells strike off the end of time 
and eternity tips the morning hills there 
will be a pulling off of masks and a rending 
of veils and a removal of false faces. In 
that event every dark corner shall be ex- 



THE NEW UNIVERSE 175 

posed and every secret thing made known, 
for he who sits upon the throne shall take 
hold of the world's mask and Hft it and say, 
"Behold, I make all things new." 

Moreover, the great Day of Disclosure 
will render an explanation for every event 
of earth, that was probed for solution but in 
vain. All the fogs that ever hung over 
mysterious causality will be unlocked. That 
empty laudanum bottle will find its long 
sought "why." That discharged derringer 
pistol which was found with blood stain on 
the silver, that midnight leap from the canal 
bridge into the water will make known their 
terrible secrets. All the mysteries of Lon- 
don Bridge will be brought out for the 
world to view under the glare of the Judg- 
ment torch. All the verdicts of "circum- 
stantial evidence" will be revised, when time 
shall cease to be a circumstance, when the 
archives of Fact will be broken open and He 
who sits upon the throne says, "Behold, I 
make all things new." 

But I am persuaded that, in the light of 
eternity and through Him who is the cham- 
pion of the realm of the new universe, we 
shall discover the errors of all the ages. 



176 THE LINE IS BUSY 

Men have long been hunting for wisdom. 
With telescope they have gone up. With 
microscope they have gone down. With 
chemist's test they have gone in. No doubt 
they have learned many things. But there 
are many theories in textbooks, many ex- 
planations of phenomena, much knowledge 
which we boastingly proclaim that angels 
laugh at and will be shown to be erroneous 
when the testing rays shall fall upon them. 
With the paddles of theological inquiry we 
have been trying to strike clear across the 
ocean of Revelation, but one day when we 
look back we will discover we have only 
moved a few feet from the shore. 

I once had a dream which was not all a 
dream perhaps. I was in a new country. It 
was hung with bewitching scenery, but it 
was not Switzerland. It had a blooming 
soil, but it was not Italy. There were lus- 
cious fruits hanging pendant from the bend- 
ing limbs, but it was not Cahf ornia. There 
were birds of rarest plumage holding con- 
cert in the treetops, but it was not in the 
tropics. Picturesque valleys it had, but it 
was not Yosemite ; seas, but not Gennesaret. 
And what with the plash of fountain, the 



THE NEW UNIVERSE 177 

carol of bird, and the benediction of a 
fragrant air, it was indeed a Land of Won- 
der. In the midst of the vision, an angel 
touched me on the shoulder and said, "Fol- 
low me and I will show you the wonders of 
the Kingdom." He led me up to a throne 
and showed me a ponderous book that was 
chained to its base. The name of that book 
was "The Mistakes of Earth Corrected." 
With the help of the angel the book was 
opened and I saw on one page some very 
familiar theories in human science and on 
the opposite page the true theories of the 
same phenomena and I said, "Why, how 
badly we missed it!" 

On another page were recorded some old 
tenets in human philosophy, together with 
certain doctrines in religion, and on the op- 
posite pages was written the true ortho- 
doxy, and I said, "How badly we missed 
it!" Turning other pages of the great book, 
we came to the Bible itself, with every verse 
and chapter. On one side was given our 
explanation of each paragraph and on the 
other side was given the true explanation, 
and now and then I noticed how widely they 
differed, and I said, "How badly we missed 



178 THE LINE IS BUSY 

it!" And the angel said, "Old things have 
passed away." And He that sat upon the 
throne said, "Behold, I make all things 
new." 

Perhaps this dream was not altogether 
inspired. But let us be thankful for that 
cherished angel who comes to tired souls and 
assures them of a coming eternity, where 
discovery does await the weary brain, and 
where a new opportimity will be given for 
the fulfillment of all our longings. 

Does it not sometimes seem that hf e is too 
short to undertake the excellent and the 
high? Does it not sometimes seem that 
every man's career is halted before he comes 
to the realization of his dream? The astron- 
omer drops his telescope when he is just 
drawing a focus upon some unfound star. 
The painter must drop his pallet when he 
has but made the outline of his masterpiece. 
The musician must forsake his lyre just at 
that moment of arriving rapture when he 
has caught the first strains of an unborn 
melody. Shall not the dead artist ever 
finish his picture? Shall not Kepler one 
day behold the star for which he so wearily 
but vainly swept the heavens? Shall not the 



THE NEW UNIVERSE 179 

completed anthem ever ripple through the 
soul of the silent minstrel? Shall not the 
Christian find a shore where is built the ful- 
fillment of his faith and where his character 
may continue its upward march? At the 
close of the first installment of a serial story 
these words appear: "To be continued" ; and 
I can but think that every unfinished noble 
task, dropped at that supreme moment 
when it seemed so desirable to live, will have 
another opportunity for fulfillment during 
the endless lapse of God's day. 

As Time is only the prologue to the great 
serial story of Eternity, let this be the reason 
for the unfinished manuscript: "To be con- 
tinued." Let this be the label for the half- 
finished picture in the studio, "To be con- 
tinued." Let this be the epitaph on the 
monument of that Garfield, that John Sum- 
merfield, that Henry Kirk White: "To be 
continued." Let this also be the subscrip- 
tion written at the close of a thorn-stuck 
life which had long looked forward to the 
palaces, which came at last, crystaUizing 
through intervening tears. But now I stop 
and think that when we get our first vision 
of Jesus we will have a conviction of the 



180 THE LINE IS BUSY 

small value of life's discoveries, compared 
with the imseen continents of Truth that 
wiU be revealed in him. However success- 
ful may have been our lives, all himian suc- 
cesses will be left behind as something old, 
that we may learn of new possibilities in 
him. All the brave who dashed through 
battle smoke and rode down the foes of 
right shall drop their captured banners to 
follow him. All the victors who saw their 
sabers flash in triumph shall leave their 
trophies hanging on the battlements of 
earth that they may be "more than con- 
querors" in him. All the Poly carps will for- 
get the stake to hsten to the untold glories 
of the cross. All the Handels will drop 
their strains to hsten to the new oratorio of 
the Messiah. All explorers will forsake 
their discoveries, to sail over the deep 
Eternities with the divine Columbus; and 
as the welcome cry of "Land ahead" 
brought rapture to the hearts of the ancient 
mariners, so wiU our association with Jesus 
be a perpetual discovery of another shore 
and a perpetual gladness for a vision of the 
eternally and grandly NEW. 



